The Dimension Tales 1: War
by Treyen
Summary: A distortion in an alternative world's magic sends thirty-odd nations to another dimension, to an uninhabited no-man's-land between five local nations. For their own interests the locals want the nations back home: dead or alive.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

**...in which the meeting doesn't really proceed**

"_No_," Norway said emphatically.

"Oh, came on," America insisted. "It's not like we destroy anything, hey."

"I won' let ya guys mess aroun' with my coastline."

America sighed looking clearly disappointed. "Why do you Nordics have to be so stubborn... say something to him, England." He made desperate look to his right.

The older nation shook his head. "If Norway says no, then 'no' it is, and then we'll have to come up with another idea." He gave a cold look back to the blue eyes, that clearly said: _stop being stubborn and get your brains working for once._

However, it was impossible for America to get such a delicate message. "Oh Norway, please?"

"Are ya goin' to get me killed or what?" Norway responded monotonously. "I said no an' that's my final answer."

"Norway…" Russia interrupted the conversation. "... Are you really going to say _no_? I don't particularly like that word..."

"This doesn't actually concern you, Russia."

"That's right," Korea said, leaning over the table to catch a fly with his sleeves, "don't push your nose in where it doesn't belong!"

"Well you are one to talk," China huffed at the irony and took the young Asian's teacup before it fell over on his papers. "And while we are at it, this does not concern you either."

Korea straightened up quickly and looked to the ageless nation, seeming almost offended. "Of course it does. I..."

At the other end of the table Germany heaved a heavy sigh at the whole conversation. Why did it always have to be so damn restless in these conferences? The timetable for the meeting was there in front of him on the table with eight important and six secondary subjects. Now, after one and a half hours of (mostly meaningless) conversation, they had just proceeded to subject number four (the first subject had been 'greeting everyone in a proper way', which they had pretty much skipped). At the moment it seemed that the fourth subject was about to escalate into a battle of the words 'yes' and 'no' between America and Norway.

Germany sighed in resignation and cast a look over the rest of the conference table.

Greece was already sleeping. Actually, he had been awake only for the first eight and half minutes if the disciplinary nation had counted correctly. Egypt hadn't made a single move after tasting his coffee thirty-eight minutes ago (by that time he had decided it wasn't worth drinking). The only reason Turkey wasn't sleeping was because he obviously didn't want to do something Greece did.

At the Asians' part of the table, Korea was giving China very detailed information of what he had to do with the current topic. The main reason seemed to be "I invented the whole idea" with a small sidetracks. Taiwan and Japan were listening to this conversation, the former more eagerly, but Hong Kong looked too bored to pay attention.

And the Nordics...

"Germanyyyy, whatcha doing?"

The blond nation turned his focus on smiling brunette beside him. "Observing," he said simply.

Veneziano reached to cling on to his hand. "Why? It's boring so let's do something more fun. Like..."

"Stop–... _clinging _onto that **bastard** already!"

And here we go again...

"You're just jealous, Romano," a Spanish accent stated cheerily over the table. "Would you like it if I came over there so you could cling onto someone also~?"

Romano obviously didn't like the idea. "Don't you dare to cross that table, you fucking freak! If you do, I'll make sure you'll regret it you little..."

"Brother, that's rude," Northern Italy broke in on the conversation. He didn't seem to realise that his argument was obvious. "You musn't be so rude," he then repeated innocently, "that's rude."

Romano opened his mouth to say "shut up", but someone else made it first.

"Shut up!"

It was England. "Both of you!"

France tried to look shocked. "But mon chér, what I said was all perfectly true."

"That doesn't change the fact that you should shut up."

America made an irritated sound which said he was annoyed with England, and also irritated about the fact he was losing his verbal battle with the Nordic, who didn't budge an inch. "Say, let's skip this, I'm tired. The next topic doesn't really need me, right?" He rose from his chair. The whole table, except for ever sleeping Greece, stared at him in absolute surprise. America didn't want to stand in the spotlight? Now this was something new to the conference. "I just go over there and take a nap, okay? But wake me up when you're done with the fifth one, right?"

England looked like he had just heard about the nuclear war. "B-But... America, you... don't..."

"Good night," the self-centred nation continued his walk away from the table without listening what he 'didn't'. "Try not to be too loud, would you," he added while sliding onto the window sill; though America should have known that the last request was nearly impossible. He moved to a comfortable position and closed his eyes.

For a moment, it was more silent than ever in that usually rambunctious room.

"God..." England whispered breathily. "Is this a joke?"

"Hmm," Russia replied looking to America with a spark of interest in his eyes. "It's a new one, alright. Interesting."

"We shouldn't blame America, he must be tired with all his work."

"Japan, you're agreeing with him again."

"This could be your chance, brother," Belarus purred from her seat.

Russia began to smile widely, but Germany saved the world from the possible third World War by reminding everyone that the fifth topic. Really. **Didn't**. Directly concern America, so Russia wouldn't gain anything but more paperwork.

Belarus gave him poisonous look and hissed. "Don't you come between the world and _my brother_~" With the last two words her voice rose and started to resemble a birdsong. She also made the taller nation quickly escape her deadly hugging attempt. Unfortunately, Russia managed to spill his coffee on Lithuania's hand while he was at it. The Baltic yelped and quickly pulled his hand away, backing away from the table to make sure no more coffee would be spilled on him. Belarus and Russia stopped their play of tag to give him a simultaneous – and sadistic – "whoops".

At this point Canada sighed but no one seemed to notice.

"Russia!" Poland objected and stood behind his dearest neighbour, taking a firm hold of his shoulders before sending his best glare at Russia. "You're being totally rash again. Watch out with what you're doing to my Liet!"

Lithuania gave a little "eh" when the blond valley-boy took his wrist and started to drag him out of the room muttering something that sounded like "honestly".

When door closed behind them Belarus turned to his brother again smiling like nothing had happened. "Don't worry about them, brother. You have me."

Russia wasn't listening but lifted a coffee stained piece of paper from the table. "I wonder if this was important," he muttered. Behind him, Ukraine was begging her sister to stop jumping on their brother and causing more ruckus.

"That might have been Lithuania's memo for this meeting," Estonia answered, shaking his head.

"Oh," Russia investigated the paper for he while before reaching a conclusion. "So it's not important, da." That wasn't a question.

"Actually, Russia, it is."

"No, it's not," the Russian backtalked, his smile turning quite dangerous again. Estonia was about to say something, but decided not to because the air between them was starting to look slightly poisonous. After a while Russia repeated; "… It's not."

Estonia sighed deeply and sent a desperate look at his friend. "Finland, help me, you know how to make him listen to what other people have to say, don't you?"

To his surprise the Nordic didn't answer; he just looked at Iceland with a worried expression. The Icelandic personification was leaning on the table, and he looked like he wasn't feeling so well.

Sweden looked bewildered and raised his hand to touch the island nation's shoulder. "Ice? 'S s'meth'n' wron'?"

When his hand touched Iceland's shoulder, it created a reaction no one anticipated. It was starting to look like there really was something new in this meeting. The smaller nation slumped down from his chair and collapsed heavily on the floor before the Netherlands, who was sitting beside him, managed to catch him. He had tried, but shock had halted his quick reflexes.

"Ice?" Two out of the four remaining Nordics, Sweden and Denmark, quickly reacted to help the now unconscious nation. Norway also stood up but didn't move more after that; he just stared at how the two tallest of the Nordics both held Iceland to investigate what was wrong. Finland didn't move, but he watched the scene, alert and ready to help.

"What's wrong?" Germany asked, sounding slightly worried.

"No idea," Denmark answered, holding Iceland's wrist in his hand and carefully supporting his head slightly above the floor. "It seems like he's unconscious... Or sleepin' rather, but he's not wakin' up."

Sweden had leaned closer to the island nation and was trying to speak to him, letting his hands wander around Iceland's face in an attempt to elicit a reaction. He shook his head after a moment, when Iceland didn't react at all no matter how he tried.

"Kinda... Scary," said Finland, clutching at his elbows. "Now it's starting to feel like it's almost… Dangerous to be this sleepy. I've been so tired for a while."

"Maybe you just have a low blood pressure, comrade," Russia suggested.

Estonia glared at him, trying to make the Russian realise his comment was slightly inappropriate. "You should know the best that Finland wouldn't care much for something like that."

Russia smiled at him. "What might you be implying, my dear Estonia?"

"Your what? And you know quite well what I'm talking about. You..."

Estonia fell silent when Russia swiftly moved himself to hover in front of Baltic's nose, having shifted over two chairs and a violently quivering Latvia. Russia was still smiling his cracked, twisted grin. "I won that war you know."

Before Russia could make mincemeat out of Estonia, the door behind them opened loudly and a panicked voice cried out for all the nations.

"Guys!" Poland shouted drawing everyone's attention to himself, halting any other conversations in the room.

A sharp gasp of surprise sounded in the conference room, every nation's eyes wide with surprise. Poland was dragging Lithuania, whose head hung down over other's shoulder.

"I seriously can't wake him up," Poland explained, sounding very worried. "He like... just suddenly collapsed. Totally blacked out and– eh?"

His words stopped like they had hit an invisible wall, when Russia unexpectedly moved. Poland and all the other nations looked even more startled as Russia fell to his knees, and then finished his impromptu trip down to the floor, hitting his shoulder on the conference table on the way. His eyes were closed and he looked completely relaxed. That was a huge difference to everyone else, who were inwardly panicking and terrified. The room was unnaturally silent again. Every gaze was wandering between Iceland, Lithuania and Russia, eyes showing confusion, worry and wariness. Veneziano was the only one who moved; he gripped Germany's hand and squeezed it tightly. Except for this little movement, nobody moved a muscle.

Then, suddenly, England started to move, hurriedly standing up. First he made only few little steps backwards and then he turned around quickly and made his way to the window.

"America." He grabbed onto the other nation's collar. "Wake up. Wake up, idiot!" When the other didn't answer his call, England raised his free hand and struck America with his palm to a cheek. The other still didn't react. He was the same as Iceland. England tightened his hold on America's shirt and clenched his teeth, letting his other hand slowly fall down to America's upper arm. "Wake up, you bloody git..."

All of the nations were now moving around restlessly, not wanting to be next. Egypt was holding the sleeping Greece against his chest, and Turkey was standing beside them, pressing his fingers on the back of Greece's chair. Belarus was kneeling beside her brother holding his scarf tightly in her hand, Ukraine just standing helplessly beside them. Poland hugged Lithuania against his chest and Denmark and Sweden were still holding Iceland.

"What?" said France, summarizing everyone's feelings in that one, single word.

Romano didn't bother to summarize. He hit his fists on the table in front of him. "What the fuck is this? Huh? Is this some kind of a new joke too? 'Cause I'm not following! What... is..." he didn't have time to finish the last sentence. Veneziano made a scared noise and clung very tightly to Germany's arm hiding his face behind his shoulder. His brother fell – quite literally – victim to this strange problem next.

"Romano," Spain gasped quickly and reached his hand over the table. For a moment he had a really surprised look on his face and then it fell with him as Spain closed his eyes as well, slumping on the tabletop. Cuba had stepped in to catch the falling Italian, but both Spain and South Italy were already peacefully sleeping by the time he had could take a proper hold of Romano.

"Is this why..." a voice asked cautiously.

Japan turned his eyes on the small nation holding his arm. The other one rested against him.

"...why I've been so tired today?"

China turned quickly to the nation. "Hong Kong–"

But like the others, the small Asian nation was already sleeping.

.*** *** ***.

"Okay!" Denmark hit his axe's helve on the floor. "Ready for action!"

"What good can that do?" England asked raising his eyebrow. "That's not going to help you stay awake, you know."

"It's mental support," the Nordic explained and stepped in the room. He turned his attention to his fellow Nordics. "Sve, ye've a guest."

Sweden raised his head in surprise. "Wha'?"

"Papa!" Sealand ran past Denmark and hurried to his adoptive parent.

Sweden hugged him tight. "Wha're ya doin' 'ere, Sealan'? Where's Hanatamago?"

"His playing with that polar bear, you see," Sealand answered. At the table Canada raised his head and looked relieved to hear about his friend. Sealand started to look around curiously. "Papa, what is going on? What's wrong with mama? Is he sick?"

Sweden tried to come up with an explanation but it wasn't necessary because the child suddenly drooped against his chest in deep sleep. Sweden placed him down beside the sleeping Finland, his frown darkening.

England sighed and put his book down on the table. "I can't figure it out. I have absolutely no idea what's happening. I'm sorry."

"I can't either," Norway said coming in from one of the smaller doors of the room.

Germany turned to him. "I've called my boss but he knows nothing either; nor does the staff in this building. But we have to think of something. There is absolutely no way we can let this just go by."

Austria shook his head. "That's obvious, because we are not trying to do this merely for those already sleeping." He put his hand on Hungary's hair. The woman was sleeping with her head in Austria's lap. The man continued, "… We are also doing this for ourselves. We might be next in line anytime."

Liechtenstein pulled her knees against her chest. Switzerland was sleeping on the floor in front of her. "Is it going to be okay?" she asked quietly.

England closed his eyes and sighed a little. "I'm afraid I can't really promise that. We have to find out exactly what is–"

A sudden loud sound startled everyone and they turned their focus towards the sleeping Italian brothers. Germany had fallen and was lying limb on the floor, like so many others already were.

Egypt raised a hand to cover his eyes. He was now sitting on the floor on his knees, Turkey and Greece sleeping on either of his sides. The ones still awake now were England, Egypt, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Austria, Liechtenstein, Canada and Ukraine.

In total, only nine countries.

.*** *** ***.

England leaned on his palms. He took a deep breath and then raised his eyes to Norway. "What do we do now?"

Norway shook his head without making eye contact. He didn't know.

Neither did England.

The other nations were silently sleeping all around them as they sat opposite each other by the conference table. They were now the only ones awake.

.*** *** ***.

England buried his fingers in his hair and bit his lip roughly. "What do _I_ do now...?"

Norway was resting his head on his arms on his side of the table, eyes peacefully closed.

The last conscious nation pressed his fingers hard against his head trying desperately to think something out. He could feel the strange sensation of this sleep creep around the corner, but he refused to give in.

England cursed under his breath, so quietly that even if someone had been there to hear him they probably would not have heard a sound. "What the fuck I'm supposed to do now? Shit... I'm not a hero god dammit..."

And when the sun showed up from behind the clouds, illuminating the room through the large windows, England had finally given in and closed his eyes.

.

TBC.

* * *

A/N: The things are getting started =D I'm posting three long fics at the same time, just great... XD To make it clear, this fic pretty dark. (It's called a 'war' what else can it be?) It's rated for blood, violence, other heavy themes and swearing.

'Dimension Tales' is serie of my fics which all have a same kind of start and a different way they develop. There is currently three of them and this is the first one, which the title should reveal. They don't have anything to o with each other so you by no means have to read all of them to get one.

Huge thanks to my beta, Scottypop: Scott, I owe you an internet for this project.


	2. 1 The Arguing Chapter

**1. The Arguing Chapter**

**...in which lots of bad explanations are heard**

England opened his eyes as he felt someone's hand touching his cheek. For a moment his vision was blurry, but then the blond man could recognize Ukraine's eyes staring down at him.

'_Wait, what?_'England didn't quite fathom the situation.

The woman smiled kindly. "Welcome, England,"

"Where?"

"Well," Ukraine looked around her and thought of what to answer, before giving the man a nervous smile. "We don't quite know yet."

England looked around him for the first time. He could determine that he was lying down on green moss in a...

"Forest?" England asked cautiously and really hoped to hear that it was only some kind of set up to confuse him.

Unfortunately the Eastern European nation's answer crushed this silent wish very quickly. "Yes. We don't know why, but it seems that we are now nowhere near the place we fell asleep."

England stood up. There was indeed a perfectly natural, fresh and clean forest around him. Not very old, there were also many younger trees everywhere. The underbrush consisted of moss, ferns and some strange, small flowers that England couldn't name. It looked exactly a place you would like to go to pick up berries or something similar.

Ukraine touched his hand and the man gave her his attention.

"Now that I found you, everyone's present," the woman started to walk away from England and when the Brit didn't immediately follow she turned and waved her hand. "Come, England. I will take you to the others. We all ended up in a same area, but not too close to each other. Unfortunate, I guess."

They walked between the trees for a little while, the man following the woman. England was so busy observing the woods around him that he almost lost a sight of his guide now and then, but luckily for him he could always catch up. The forest around them stood still with no wind moving the leaves or branches. But it wasn't completely silent; there were birds singing their tunes somewhere out of sight. England listened to the singing for a while only to realise that he had no idea what kind of winged creature could make a sound like that. Without letting it bother him any further, he caught up with Ukraine.

"So, every one of us came here, was that right?" He asked the woman.

"Yes. Apparently Greece was the first one, then America and Iceland."

"Why is it that the Greece part doesn't surprise me at all... So is everyone okay and all?"

"Yes, no physical damage in sight."

'_Physical..._'England wondered to himself and smiled back a little to the women and suddenly realised something. "Say, Ukraine, how did you find me? It seems we're not that close to others."

"Accidentally. I'm taking a walk."

"A walk?" England repeated in disbelief. "In a situation like this?"

The woman smiled to him a little. "Well, I needed to breathe."

Again, England didn't quite understand.

.*** *** ***

"I see," the Brit uttered indifferently, staring the scene Ukraine had brought him to.

"I didn't do anything," Russia contradicted. He turned to Estonia. "Maybe this is some of your crazy festivals with Finland again?"

"I refuse to take that seriously," Estonia answered and crossed his hands to reject that notion. "I don't know how you come up with these arguments of yours, Russia, but I'm quite sure I manage well without ever visiting the source of your ideas."

"Are you so sure...?" Belarus whispered to the Baltic's ear, holding her knife against his back. "It was you, wasn't it?" Her voice was leaking poison.

Estonia shivered, knowing that he would possibly be killed if he tried to move more than that. "It wasn't. Why do you think that anyway?"

"Because Russia says so."

"Belarus, stop making decisions with logic like that."

"Did you just complain?"

"Yeeeergh!"

"Wait a minute Belarus!" Lithuania gripped the woman's shoulder. "Stop doing that, you will... Eh?"

Belarus shut the oldest Baltic up by placing her deadly weapon under his chin. "Or maybe it was you?"

"...What?"

"What if we now very, very slowly start to uncover your filthy plans of taking over the Earth?"

"What?"

"...Lithuania... You..."

"Don't believe her, Latvia!"

"Now surrender and admit it."

"Eeeehhhh?"

"Hm~," Russia observed things from a safe distance. "Lively and eventful, I'd say..."

America sighed melodramatically, raising his fingers to his forehead, presumably trying to look smart. "Just do something, would you, Russia. It's not heroic to just watch, you know."

"_That_ would only cause more harm to the Baltic brothers, I presume," Austria interrupted. "The one going into this should be authoritative and delicate enough to..."

America smiled enthusiastically and his glasses were glowing. Leaving the Austrian behind him he started to whistle quietly, approaching the fighters with a look of "absolute justice" in his face and muttering, "time for some heroism..."

Austria could only stare after him. Behind him, Hungary sighed but smiled a little. "I'm sure he wanted to hear just that, Austria. Thanks to you, now we'll have one dead American alongside the three Baltics."

"_I_ said delicate," Austria pointed out. "It is his fault for not listening."

England sighed. "Damn that idiot."

"Oh, hi there England," Denmark greeted, leaning casually against his axe. "Welcom' to the best seats of a live-action movie parody. I'm sure ye ain't gonna regret watching this show."

England glared at him. "Say, Denmark, what if you go there right now and stop things from getting more dangerous?"

"Wha'? Why me?"

Norway answered on England's behalf. "Ya have an axe. Belarus has a knife."

"Well Switzerland has rifle, send him."

"I won't participate in any of your fights."

"Could ye just lock yer neutrality into a closet for a moment?"

A second after this comment, there was a well-controlled rifle pointing towards the Nordic's nose at a distance of a few millimetres. "Are you trying to order me around here?" Switzerland inquired as casually as Denmark had been leaning on his axe.

"No, it was... A friendly suggestion."

Switzerland took a step closer without moving his gun. "Why can't I tell the difference?"

"Well that's not my problem, Swiss," Denmark tried to move the weapon pointing at him. "We could say ye're an idiot."

"What?" The simple question came out with a tone that wouldn't accept just any answer one might offer.

Iceland took a grip on the neutral nation's beloved military partner and stopped Switzerland from killing his friend. He sighed. "Den..."

Behind Denmark's back, Norway extended his hand to catch the other's hair between his fingers. He received a little shriek when pulling the other sharply to himself. Norway seemed to have only one thing to say, and it was also written all over his face. "Idiot."

"So, England," Liechtenstein tried to change the subject. "What do you think about this?"

"Well," England answered and turned his eyes onto the girl. "Frankly, I'm pissed off."

"Me too," Germany took a place beside the island nation. Then he raised his voice to his best bossy tone. "Silence!"

Everyone stopped whatever they were doing (there was quite a range of options) and looked at him - some with surprise, some with very irritated expressions.

"Everyone!" Germany took a step forward. "Calm down. Immediately. You're making things worse. We have to quiet down for a while and really try to think. First of all..."

"What're you doing being all bossy 'round here?" Romano needled and had his brother in a headlock efficiently stopping him from instantly obeying anything the German would say. To make sure his question was really understood, he mumbled. "You potato freak... This is just part of your scheme again..."

Germany was about to answer when Lithuania broke into the conversation. "I agree with Germany. Let's think this over. We're just blaming one person after another. We should-"

"What, are you trying to escape?" Belarus spat behind him. Estonia held her hand to keep the knife away from Lithuania's back, but didn't succeed so well. Belarus' eyes were burning with excitement. "Don't you try to slip out of my clutch..."

"S-Stop it already!" Lithuania had an almost desperate look on his face. "Russia! Do something, your sister is trying to kill me!"

Russia smiled. "Go for it, Belarus."

"Excuse me-what?"

"I told you to quiet down!" Germany snapped but if there was someone who listened to him, it wasn't America.

"Fear not Lithuania! I'll stop this sexual harassment for good!"

"America, you're between me and my prey."

"Whoops, sorr—wait NO! I mean... I'm a hero! And I'll protect the innocent victims from any sort of abuse!"

"Well great for you, but that doesn't concern me, so go do your what-ever-job elsewhere - and preferably now - because there's nothing _innocent_ here."

"M-Miss Belarus," Latvia tried to gather his courage. "I... uh... I really... you see... well..."

Belarus staaaaared...

"N-Nothing..."

"Latviaa-aa..." Lithuania sobbed, sounding betrayed.

Russia chuckled. "They sure are having fun, right?" he turned his head to his right.

Finland laughed a little. "Definitely."

Sweden looked at his neighbour in utter disbelief.

"Oohhh, you're annoying!" Cuba appeared from somewhere and tried to hit America but missed. "Shut up and do something useful!"

"Stay out of it!" Canada warned him, but suddenly Korea was sitting on his shoulders, waving his long sleeves, and Canada couldn't continue.

"Yeiihh! It looks fun, guys! May I join?" the Korean cheered to the battle in front of them from his prominent position.

"No!" China objected, grapping the back of other's hanbok and pulling him down. Canada fell over too in the process. "Stop being ridiculous," he scolded the younger Asian.

"But brothee-er..."

"I said no!"

"Honestly. Please act like an adult and concern the situation we're in before acting," Japan added and turned to look down beside him, to another Asian. "Hong Kong, what are you doing?"

The young Asian stopped poking the fallen Canadian and looked at the other with innocent eyes, saying nothing.

Taiwan laughed.

In her laugh there was something that finally made England's nerves go right over the edge.

"Shut up! SHUT! THE! FUCK! UP!"

This time, it really became silent.

"You bloody idiots!" England had decided to tell everyone how he felt. "You are seriously! Stupid! Twats! I don't know about you, but I fucking want to know where the hell this is and how the hell I get out of here! And you infernal boneheads are, right now, going between me and this desire, and screw that! You stop your pointless ass-kicking this instant and start trying to co-operate or I will fucking get your heads brainwashed with your own shit! Get that, brats?"

...

...

...

Egypt smiled.

England was satisfied with the silence. He turned to Germany. "So, Germany. What was it you were going to say?"

.*** *** ***

Almost two days had passed since their arrival to the forest.

They had again slept under the sky. Day 3 of their wandering was about to begin (not that they had gotten very far, someone even noted that they might actually be going in circles). After a few hours of somewhat-settled-down discussion, a few more hours of investigating the surrounding grounds and too many notes of someone being hungry, they found the first sign of intelligent life: a small hut. Unfortunately, however, it was uninhabited. But it still had been very tempting with its four rooms and soon they were all packed into the biggest room and around the only table in the abandoned building. It wasn't exactly comfortable.

At that moment, they were listening to Norway's explanation of what was going on, according to all the information he had managed to gather.

"Wait a minute... Are you saying this is some kind of alternate universe? That's ridiculous!"

"Yes, I think so too," Norway shook his head. "But that's the way I see it."

Estonia took a step forward and gestured his rejection for this idea. "That's just scientifically impossible."

"So is England's magic," France pointed out cheerfully. "But tell me," he directed his words to Norway. "How would you have ended up with such an interesting conclusion, my little friend?"

"Magic," Nordic answered shortly.

"You used your magic to confirm this?"

"No. I didn' need to. It's everywhere aroun' us. But I can't identify it."

America looked somewhat nervous about this fact and started glancing around as if trying to see some murderously grinning magical flows in the corners. "Are you sure about that?"

Norway nodded in silence.

"I second that," England said. "There are some weird currents in the ground. I haven't sensed anything like that before."

Germany sighed. "So... If we believe you two now..."

"Which we don't," Romano mumbled from his corner and received a glare from several people.

"... What are we expected to do next?" Germany continued as Spain quietly lectured Romano for being improper. The effect seemed to be rather slight as always.

Norway closed his eyes for the moment as England clearly expected him to answer. Then he exhaled a little. "I coul' ge' us back. But tha'll take time."

"Really? Great, how long you need?" America asked eagerly.

"Three days."

"What?" The question was heard from every direction.

"Oh, you gotta be kiddin' me," Turkey uttered, shaking his head. "What're we expected to do..."

"I'm in," Greece said immediately.

"Hey!"

"That's only," Norway continued ignoring the two arguing for the third time that day. He sent an expressionless stare towards his only fellow magician, "if I can have yer help."

England shook his head. "You can't."

Norway raised his eyebrows a little but otherwise didn't show any of his current emotions.

America looked at his former adoptive parent. "England! You gotta help! Are we going to leave the whole world in the hands of North Korea?"

("Mein Gott, Prussia is there too..." Germany turned pale. His brother had announced that he was going to drink while they were having a conference, because he didn't feel like his awesome presence was needed. Austria sighed and Hungary began to chuckle, which she however tried to hide.)

"Why aren't you—"

"It isn't that I don't want to," England stopped him, raising his hand, and explained peacefully. "I can't. I tried it out when I first sensed the magic here. I cannot use it. None of it. At least not here," he turned to Norway. "Sorry. I cannot be of any use."

Norway thought this for a while, frowning, and the others waited for his comment to this information. Soon the Scandinavian gave them his results. "Six days."

"WHAT!"

"You're noisy," someone noted.

They fell silent. The voice was unknown. The first to react was Switzerland. Within a second, he had pointed his rifle towards the doorway that led outside. A man stood leaning against the door that they had left open for some fresh air. He let his gaze wander around the suddenly alerted nations.

"As always, one could say," he then added lightly.

* * *

A/N: Please let me elaborate that even though these first two parts might not give that air, "humour" is not added to the genre section and nations-tans will be having harder times ahead. And thank you for the reviews! (already? :o)

My thanks fly now also to the other side of the world to my beta: Scott, thank you.


	3. 2 The Silent Talking Chapter

**2. The Silent Talking Chapter**

**...in which everyone is doing their best**

They stared. A human? Now it really was their first sight of intelligent life. Staring at them in silence, the human waited for them to make some kind of a greeting. He was tall, had short brown hair and an army uniform that didn't match any design they had seen before. But what really caught their interest was the fact he had a handgun dangling from his waist, and that the man had been able to come so near them without anyone noticing.

"Who... Are you?" asked England, standing up from the chair he had used.

"A nation," the other answered simply.

"Like... What?" Poland, who was closest to the door, asked. He was practically only one meter away from their uninvited guest.

"The same as you," their guest repeated his last words in another way. "In here at least." He was very calm despite having Switzerland's rifle still pointing at him.

Germany took a step towards him. "I don't really understand, but I think that's not a very uncommon feeling right now. Anyway, does this mean that you know where we are?"

The other one nodded and let his eyes wander over them again.

Austria coughed a little, clearing his throat. "And would you perhaps care to share this information with us, sir? If you do not mind."

Unexpectedly, the man smiled and answered cheerfully. "Actually I do mind. So no, I won't be telling you anything."

"Excuse me?"

"Why is that?" Switzerland asked emphatically as he moved to better firing position without breaking his stance. For some reason the man pissed him off. "And what do you mean by saying "as always". If my memory serves me right, this is the first time we've met."

"To you that's the case, yes. I, however, am different," the foreign nation admitted casually, and this only made Switzerland clench his teeth in frustration. "I know you quite well actually. And I have my reasons not to answer your questions."

Germany had made his way to the door and pulled Poland out of the foreigner's reach. "Why do my senses tell me not to trust you?"

"How should I know about your senses?" the foreigner inquired sarcastically. "But I have to say that they've got a point there. I am, after all, here to inform you that I'm going to get rid of you."

Switzerland shot. It was meant to be only a warning, but it didn't live up to even that. The bullet curved unnaturally far from its target, and no one could see where it hit. The neutral nation frowned and tried to shoot again, but England stopped him by taking a grip of his wrist.

England sent their suspicious guest a cold look. "Are you using magic?"

The brown haired man smiled. "No," he pointed his finger to the right side of the door where they couldn't see. "He is."

Germany took one more step away from the door and pushed Poland back too. Norway stepped in front of him to prevent all magic-based attacks if necessary. He still hadn't changed his expression, but his fellow Nordics who knew him best could see some hidden negative gleam in his eyes.

The magician the other had talked about stopped leaning against the wall outside in an angle no one could see him and slowly walked past the first appeared man. He was little shorter than the other one and wearing a different uniform; grey in comparison to the green one. He walked away without bothering to wait for his comrade.

The brown haired man continued. "It's necessary for me that you all die. If you feel like living, all you have to do is leave here within two days and hide from me. Should be simple enough." Then he, too, turned and started to walk away like he had just said something completely natural.

America snapped and pushed Norway out of his way to get outside. Most of the nations followed suit and spread out to the yard behind him like an opening fan, as America went a few steps further. "Stop kidding around! What are you talking about? Why do you want us to die?"

"And if I may add," Russia smiled at the nation. "You seem to know we are mostly defenseless right now. May I ask why you didn't kill us right away, but are willing to wait those two days of yours? I wouldn't do that."

"Yes, knowing you, I can believe that," the man turned to them again, stopping for a while. "Two days is the time I need to mobilize and transfer the needed troops into this area. And although I do really prefer you dead, I have quite a respect for you so I'm going to give you a proper death. That would be the main reason."

"Whoa wait, wait, wait!" China stepped forward. "Troops, you say? You are going to use an army? Against us? There is only... what, thirty of us in here? What have we done to deserve this kind of treatment? And to second Russia, you need not wait, do you? What is the point?"

"I have no obligations to answer that," the man said in return, and moved to take his leave again.

"That is stupid! Why do you came here in the first place if you are not going to tell us anything?"

"To warn you. And I have a policy of properly greeting my enemies before I kill them."

"That is even stupider!" China shouted, but the nation was already walking away from them again.

"There is no reason for you to know my situation. You just have to die. If you don't want to; run. It's all up to you."

America was seething. "Stop screwing around! What's this for? What? We have no idea where this is or why we're here, and you just come out of nowhere and declare a war on us!" He took several steps forward, clearly frustrated. "We don't even know you! Who are you, and who's that with you? 'You have no obligations,' you say? 'Respect'? Fuck that! We have all the rights to know! Why you—"

America stopped talking in the split second when he felt a searing pain in his right shoulder. The world around him slowed down. The sound came almost five seconds late. By that time, he had already lost the sense of pain and could only faintly understand what the sound he heard was.

"AMERICA!"

.*** *** ***.

The other nations watched America walk after their newfound enemy, shouting questions one after another. They could easily agree with him. Not everyone understood what exactly was going on, but there was no one who thought there wasn't a good reason to be angry. Some even nodded to America's speech to show their approval to the points he made.

Then the unknown man turned to face them once more; only this time his calm expression was long gone, and his eyes were now filled with something showing pure, unadulterated irritation. He turned around fast, his gun suddenly in his hand; in a position ready to fire. Then, there was only the sound of a shot still echoing in the woods. Startled with the sudden turn of action and silence everyone just stared, wide-eyed, at the man holding the gun. Switzerland's hands were shaking and squeezing his rifle.

When America's legs then gave in they finally came to their senses from the silent shocked state they had all been in for the last second or two.

"America!" England screamed, looking absolutely terror-stricken. With Canada beside him he reached for the falling nation and caught him just before America hit the ground. "AMERICA!"

"You filthy little..!" Switzerland shouted in anger and quickly aimed at him with his gun. Not that he was friends with America, but he had more unfriendly opinions about his current kill list number one. He however didn't have time to shoot, as Austria grabbed his gun and his shoulder to prevent that.

"Stop," the Austrian said, with a voice that was telling how he himself was holding back his anger. "Wait. Remember the magic– Switzerland, listen to me!"

Behind him, Liechtenstein was holding Hungary's hand with a shaking grip.

Switzerland wasn't the only one to react violently, but all three of them had someone near to hold them. Norway and Iceland had stepped forward to hold Denmark and to Germany's surprise he found Russia holding his raised arm.

"Let go," Germany ordered irascibly and tried to free himself but stopped when Veneziano's hand grabbed his chest and the Italian pressed himself near him. Germany stared at him, clearly confused.

"Please don't," Northern Italy shook his head. "Germany."

"As I already said, I'll be coming back here in two days," their enemy suddenly spoke and they all gave him a glare. "Decide you run or not, I'll be here."

Sweden dropped to his knees and took the shaking Sealand gently against his chest.

The foreign nation continued. "If you have any more disagreements feel free to run after me. Goodbye," with this said he turned once more and finally made his leave.

For a little moment the nations were silent.

Then Japan approached England and Canada. "How's he? America... Is he still–"

"That guy was all so mighty, but he, to be quite blunt, sucks at aiming," England answered and opened America's bomber jacket, which now had a big hole in it. "I was sure it hit his chest fatally, but it seems the bullet missed both the heart and lungs."

"But either way, we have nothing to treat him with," Canada said, and pressed America's shirt against the shoulder to prevent any more blood from spilling out of the wound. "And the bullet is still inside."

Germany looked to his right. "Norway, can you do anything about it? With magic I mean."

But the little Scandinavian shook his head. There wouldn't be any miraculous healing shows to be seen.

Greece popped into the conversation. "What if... Can some of us... Do it?" he asked, trying to form a good sentence.

"Well," Turkey seemed irritated about the fact he thought the same. "Almost everyone has been in a war, okay..."

"True!" Northern Italy caught the idea too. "Who's a good medic?"

England made a meditative sound and then, after browsing his memory in two or three seconds, he pointed to the one he had picked. "Finland! You have the world's best doctors!"

"What? No!" the small Nordic replied hurriedly. It looked like the words had really pierced him. "I don't, that's... That's an average!"

"Then you have a better chance of not killing him than we do."

"But—"

"Sounds good," Russia put his hand on his forever-rival's shoulder. He smiled at him. "It's okay, it's just America's life that's in your hands," the smile widened. "Nothing more, da?"

"Russia, you sound like you want to kill America and make it my fault..."

"Why, I would never do something like that."

"Yes you would, and we can always have a conversation about this."

"Shut it, Finland, and do your job, it's been decided," said England, and he ignored a loud objection. "Besides you're a sniper so your hands shouldn't shake."

Finland, however, really didn't want to have this job. "But... uh... Switzerland is a sniper too!" he tried. "And I can't do it alone!"

"To have Switzerland to treat America?" Canada frowned.

"No. Fucking. Way," the Swiss ended this conversation short. "Liechtenstein, you go help Finland. And take some other girls with you, they should do."

Liechtenstein looked at her brother. "With pleasure if you want, brother. But what are you going to do?"

Switzerland rapped his gun. "I think we have a new conference to attend."

.*** *** ***.

They had moved America carefully and as quickly as possible to the one of the three smaller rooms of the hut. The room was positioned to the immediate right of the main door that led outside, and it had three beds and one window. They had laid America down on one of the beds, and Finland, who had surrendered and was now taking his job dead seriously, was kneeling beside him and investigating the wound.

After a while, he looked up to his audience behind him. "Okay, I know what I should do. But I have three problems. First of all, I don't have any tools, nor anything to prevent the wound from getting infected. I have also slept two days in a forest, how clean do you think my hands are? And lastly, WOULD YOU STOP STARING?"

Germany turned around and – quite literally – kicked everyone behind him out of the room and followed the orders himself, glaring at ones still in the little room. "You heard him. We chose Finland to do this, now we obey him."

"Good," Finland turned back to America and started doing what he could in that situation. "Then try to find some water and bring it to me. And try to make fire too if possible. Does anyone have something I could use to take out the bullet? Something like... uh... Bobby pins? Norway?"

"_No_."

"I got acupuncture needles," Korea offered and investigated his sleeves. "Here, ya want them?"

The Nordic took the six nicely packed needles and investigated them. "Liechtenstein, you said you would help? Come and hold this wound for me, I need two sets of hands."

"Korea, why do you carry things like that to conferences?" Japan asked when they were outside of the room.

China's head appeared from over the Japanese male's shoulder. "Wait a minute, those are mine."

"Yeah, I borrowed them last week," the youngest Asian answered. "I took them with me to the meeting so I could give them back, since I already had my way with them."

"Well, you did not tell me you were going to borrow them. I looked for them and... What do you mean 'had your way with them'?"

"These won't do," Finland interrupted, still bent down over America. The Asians realised that he wasn't talking to them. "They're too thin and short," the Finn bit his lip trying to think about the options he had, and the time he had to think. Because he knew America wasn't going to be able to wait too long. He looked at the other nations once more. "Don't you have anything else?"

"Well, I have these," Ukraine pointed the pins she had in her hair. "But they aren't any longer."

"Okay, then it's time for some Finnish innovation. Sve, Eesti, give me your glasses."

"Huh?/H'h?"

"No wait, only Sve's will do… I'll use America's own…"

England looked at his chosen doctor and was not sure if he had made a correct decision or not.

"Well," Japan interrupted as Sweden was really about to give his glasses to his neighbour. "I have chopsticks. Not that they would be any help but you asked so..."

"That's it! Give them to me, Japan!"

"Huh?" This time the voice rose from many different mouths. England raised his hand to cover his eyes, and he was really hoping the Finn knew what he was doing.

.*** *** ***.

They had gathered in the biggest room of the hut once more.

"Are you absolutely sure?" Germany asked one more time. Norway nodded silently and he turned to the other magician. "And you are too?"

"I've said it already, God knows how many times," England sighed. "The unfortunate thing is that we really have no choice if we want to get back home."

"So our next week's schedule is to stick in this area protecting Norway from an evil villain and his who-knows-how-big army until he can arrange us home which means six days a least," France summarized their quickly organized meeting. "With one rifle, one axe and five daggers."

"And dying is forbidden," Russia reminded them about that one particular one detail, poking Latvia's cheek out of habit.

An annoyingly deep silence followed.

Turkey sighed heavily. "Guys..." he leaned against the wall and let his gaze wander to the ceiling. "... This sucks."

.*** *** ***.

Sweden watched as his eastern neighbour took a deep breath and slowly began working, eyes sharpened in a way he had seen before only on a battleground. He noticed that it was just as England had said; the hands doing the job weren't shaking. But there was someone else seemingly nervous standing behind Finland. And another one who had managed to hold his hands still up 'til now, but was clearly shaking beneath the surface. The one standing by the door was leaned against the wood, trying not to watch the scene. They were all waiting for Finland to say something. And yet they somewhat hoped he'd keep silent.

Sweden stepped silently a little to his right and laid his hand softly on Seychelles' shoulder. The girl stopped wrinkling her long shirt and blinked at the man, clearly surprised.

The Nordic looked back for a while. They all knew to remain silent. Sweden took his hand off the girl's shoulder and let himself smile a little at the younger nation.

It was okay. They wouldn't let the Finn fail.

.*** *** ***.

"Starting from the scratch," Switzerland walked out of the door and raised his voice a bit so that they could still hear him. "We can anticipate that his going to attack from the direction he disappeared to. That's not an absolute fact since we don't know all the circumstances, but it's better to start with this than with nothing at all."

"It's impossible for us to defend this hut for six days by hiding inside it," Germany said and leaned to the door frame massaging his temple. "We can barely fit in here everyone at the time, it would be impossible to defend it that way, let alone if he has bombs."

"That means that we should get known with surrounding grounds little better," England continued from behind him. "From what I can see right now, I'd say that we're going to have guerrilla warfare on unknown grounds with minimum materials and against superior forces. That means three points decrease in our survival chances. If I may add, I would try to get rid of at least one of them."

"Do we like, even have that 'increase points' part?" Poland asked sarcastically.

"Yes, I think we have one," England answered as he looked at him. "I would say no matter how many wars that nation has been through or how old he is, there is not enough experience to challenge all thirty-six of us."

.*** *** ***.

Liechtenstein was kneeling beside Finland and holding America still, just in case. If the injured nation woke up, it would be a real problem. Finland had told them that it worried him maybe the most, since they didn't have any painkillers or anaesthetics. Norway had been able to deepen America's sleep, but it was only a matter of time before the magic would wear out.

Sweden had finally stopped Seychelles' shaking, and Liechtenstein had barely understood how. She thought Finland hadn't even noticed his neighbour move. The girl looked at the man as he silently searched his mind to find a way to get the bullet out with a pair of chopsticks and five needles.

Liechtenstein held her suspicions and fear inside her and kept telling herself it was going to be okay. She would have wanted to tell that to the other nation as well.

.*** *** ***.

"I would like to have a map, damn it," England swore, and Germany nodded.

"We just have to survive with what we have," Austria said and closed his eyes. "Of course, it is possible for us to make a map of the area in these two days we have."

"With what?" asked Russia, clearly interested.

Austria opened his eyes and nodded to the centre of the room. "We have a smooth wooden table. And Belarus has knives-"

"Whoa there," said the woman in question as she approached the man from the other side of the room, and stopped in front him, locking their gazes. "Don't you dare to use my knives for something like carving wood."

The man raised his chin a little and looked down at the shorter women. "My deepest apologies, miss, but if it would prevent someone I care about or myself from dying, I would gladly steal your knives anytime."

Belarus stared at the man silently for a moment before she smiled faintly. "Very well then," she bent down a bit and took one knife from its sheath that was attached to her shin.

Austria looked at her little, surprised. He hadn't actually asked for one; however, he took it anyway.

Before Belarus let go of the knife she was going to hand over, she came very close to the man's face and smiled viciously. "I want it back sharp."

Austria stared into her eyes with a strict expression. "I always take good care of the instruments I play."

.*** *** ***.

Belgium leaned to the door that led out of the room. She was waiting for some kind of errand that she would be able to run. She kept her gaze on the floor and just listened to the sounds – near-silent movement, clothes rustling, breathing – that the others were making. She wondered if the others were as nervous as she was. Belgium knew she wouldn't let it affect her actions, for the sake of everyone else in the room – especially America.

"Belgium."

The blonde woman raised her eyes and met Finland's violet ones that had turned to her a second before.

"Bring me one of Belarus' knives."

Without asking why, Belgium turned and opened the door of the room, hurrying out.

.*** *** ***.

Belarus looked moody, but gave the knife to Belgium after Ukraine and England scolded her.

"In any case, we have an axe and knives," Germany continued their earlier conversation as Belgium disappeared into the little room again. "With them, we can make wooden weapons… Not that they would help much, but they would be better than nothing."

"Stakes," said Turkey suddenly, and Germany looked at him, clearly expecting an explanation. The masked man smiled. "Making the forest into a needle bed would be fun."

"And just who is going to do that in the time we have?" Greece asked. "Thought I have to admit that would maybe give us some time."

"But not for six days," France reminded. "And have you wondered what do we do then, if they start burning the forest?"

"Norway," Germany sighed as he looked desperately at the magician that had been sitting upon the table the whole time, and who was still holding Sealand.

Now the Nordic shook his head. "I already told ya. Whatever it was that pulled us here, it's the only way for me to find the right way back. I have to do it as close to the place we appeared as possible."

.*** *** ***.

Seychelles held the water for Sweden as he helped Finland. Canada had earlier found a little spring in the woods, and that little source of clean water was now their saviour. To their luck, there had been some bowls in the hut, so it was much easier to use the water several hundred meters away.

Seychelles watched the blood run down America's shoulder and soak into the mattress. It had been doing that for a long time now, she noted sadly.

Sweden had bent down to America's level, but he was concentrating more on Finland, ensuring that it would be as easy as possible for him.

Finland raised his hand and handed Liechtenstein a bloodstained knife, without letting his eyes wander from his patient.

Seychelles closed her eyes for a while and then opened them with determination. She had vowed that she wouldn't break until they got back home. After that, she could talk about this laughing with everyone. When she would be able laugh about it afterwards, it would be okay to break.

But since it wasn't now, she just had to make sure the bowl wouldn't shake or the water spill out.

.*** *** ***.

"So," China started talking after a long silence. "Do we have a plan?"

"Not any good one for sure," Japan answered. "Unarmed like this, there isn't much we can do."

"Well, what if we just," asked China smiling and raised one of his fingers. "Trust that he underestimates us and clear this with bare hands?"

"Are you going to practice some kung fu on him?" asked Hungary. "If you teach me, I could help you. Of course, it would be better if you could make me a frying pan, Norway."

Nordic shook his head. "I won't waste my magic on anythin'."

Spain smiled. "Does that mean that you could do it if you wanted to?"

Norway sent a cold glare at him. "Summoning kitchen tools is easier than summoning trolls. Thought I'd have to know their exact location first, so it wouldn't help here."

"Hey, I have an idea," Korea suggested as he put his hand on Hungary's shoulder. "Hungary and I team up, you summon us frying pans and we make it into effective kitchen artillery,"

Japan hit him lightly. "This is serious."

"I am serious!"

"Then it must mean that we really are short of ideas," Japan shook his head and tried to ignore Taiwan, who was chuckling behind his back.

Suddenly the door of the little room opened again, and this time it was Finland who came out. Everyone sitting stood up and all eyes stopped to the Nordic whose hands were covered in red blood that had not yet fully dried up. His eyes looked empty, as if he wasn't really looking at anything, or that he was even conscious. Sweden appeared from the room too and stopped behind the smaller nation, looking extremely worried.

England stepped forward. "Well?"

* * *

A/N: Silent talking refers to the silence between those who deal with America.

Some notes:

Firstly, the thing that "Finland has world's best medics in average" is true, but I fail to remember what year stats those were OTL I think it was somewhere around 2007...

Secondly, I personally don't like this chapter, because out of all my own characters I've ever made, our main villain is the one I dislike the most on the author-level. Maybe that's the reason he actually shows in this story only twice after this. And besides, this thing is melodramatic -.-'

Thirdly, I'll send my thanks to my beta who's doing this for me even though she has so much other things to worry about. Scott, you make me happy.

Thank you for all the reviews, alerts and to the people who read this in general.


	4. 3 The Alliance Making Chapter

**3. The Alliance Making Chapter**

**...in which some things make sense**

"Well?"

They tried to peek into the room behind the Nordics, but could only see two of the girls.

Canada came a little closer to Finland. "How is he?" There still was no answer. "Finland?"

Finally, the impromptu medic made a move. He turned, pressed his palm against the wall and leaned against it, his other hand clutching at his chest. He looked like he had just woken up and realised he was in a state of shock. And it also appeared that there was a dark, cloud-like thing looming above his head.

"It fucking_ worked_..." he muttered and ignored Sweden's worried movements beside him. "I'll _never_ do that again..."

"So you did it?" England, Canada and a couple of others were demanding a proper answer enthusiastically.

But Finland had buried himself under his cloud. Sweden tried to get rid of it, but it was stuck above the gloomy Finn.

"I'm sure he won't die immediately," Belgium answered on Finland's part happily, appearing from the room. "But I would ask that you keep it down until he recovers a bit."

"Right," England nodded, looking relieved. "That idiot, making the others worry..."

"You girls could keep watch on him," France smiled and patted England's shoulder in a friendly manner. "If not just to make sure that he doesn't do something... Reckless."

"Oh, that would be just like him," Canada admitted, eyeing the ceiling in irritation.

"We already received that order," Seychelles smiled tiredly. "From Sweden."

The addressed nation nodded silently and tried to ignore Denmark, who was poking his shoulder and asking questions about the details of the case. His effort failed when Iceland started doing the same thing.

"Shall we continue?" Switzerland cut the chatter around him coldheartedly. "Now that we don't have any unnecessary nuisances bothering our brains, we can give better thought to our current situation."

"I agree," answered Germany, and he raised his hands to quiet everyone down. "We will resume the discussion of the topic we were at. To the ones who just joined this conversation, the topic is what we should do next."

Sweden stopped explaining things to Denmark and Iceland and looked over at Germany. The girls nodded eagerly, seeming interested in a course of action. Finland was still leaning against the wall and didn't seem to notice they were talking about him too.

"So in other words!" Korea announced happily. "We are the'what the fuck do we do now' committee!"

"Yes yes, now shut it," Hong Kong sighed.

.*** *** ***

The more they talked, the clearer it came that what Korea had said was more true than what Germany had said. Despite of all their efforts, the question seemed meaningless without the swearing word. Fighting against an army was ridiculous and suicidal with their current equipment. There had been an idea of just hiding in the forest. Actually Cuba had come up with an idea of digging some underground basements where they could both hide and from where they could make surprise attacks. This was rejected after a little investigation to the forest because no one was ready to dig bare hands the ground that was full of roots and rocks. What ever they came up with it seemed to be a dead end. Every idea ended up in the same conclusion: they would be so dead.

But it was just as Southern Italy kindly reminded them at the one point: "Like hell I'm gonna die!"

.*** *** ***

"So what are we going to do now is form groups that deal with different kind of problems," England began the first summary of their so-called 'conference'. "First of all, there is Norway and the problem of returning home." He glanced over at the Nordic. "Are you going do it alone?"

Norway shook his head. "No. Estonia is going to join me."

"I am?" Estonia raised an eyebrow.

"Yes."

"I see."

"Secondly, we will need a group that is going to arrange us something to eat and important things like that," England continued. "That also means investigating the surrounding areas in hope of finding someone willing to give us food, et cetera."

"When we know nothing about this place, that's going to be dangerous," Japan pointed out. "I recommend that this group has people with enough experience to survive with both troublesome natives and extreme weather conditions… Not to mention a difficult terrain."

"They should also have some experience of hiking," Lithuania said. "It seems they're going to move around quite a bit."

"The third group is going to deal with the problem of our defence," England began again, his voice steady and stern.

"I still think an assassination is the best choice," France commented. "If we get rid of our main villain, the others are bound to waver."

"I would do it immediately, if I'd knew something about our target. Like where I could find him," Switzerland answered, leaning on the table. "It's not even truly certain that he'll come back with his army. It could come without him, or he may just give orders from elsewhere."

"I can do it," Russia suggested. "I'll find him for sure."

"That would be a mass murder, not an assassination," Estonia pointed out almost cynically.

"Wars always have victims," Russia smiled and turned to Denmark. "Could I borrow your axe, comrade?"

The Nordic hugged his weapon and turned away from Russia. "If she is used for an assassination, I'll do it myself."

"Ya'r too loud fo' tha'," Sweden shook his head, and his southern neighbour turned to glare at him.

"I'm not _that_ loud!"

"Yes you are," answered all the other Nordics together.

"Whuh? Cut it out, guys! Ye know I..."

"We know yar loud."

"No I'm–"

"Cut it out!" Germany snapped, enraged. "You can continue your conversation after we get home!"

England sighed. "Anyway, let's start forming the groups now. Out of us there's–"

Suddenly the door of the small room opened. "Count me in!"

The nations were confused and fell silent.

"Count me in," America repeated, gripping the door frame to hold his balance. He was pale, covered in sweat and breathing like he had run some ten miles or more.

Behind him, Seychelles and Liechtenstein were shifting on their feet, unsure of what to do.

"A... A..." England stuttered. "Amer... uh..."

"I knew you would do something like that," Canada walked across the room, shaking his head as he stopped in front of his brother and put a hand on America's head. "Go back to bed. Now."

"No," America shook the hand off and pushed his brother out of the way using the strength that he, in that situation, could use with his left hand. His right hand was bandaged and plastered tightly against his upper body, using the remaining pieces of his own shirt. The movement almost made him lose his balance, but Liechtenstein was quick enough to move forward and support him. America breathed heavily. "I can do it... Just give me a new shirt... I'm not... Going to lay down... In the situation like this... I can't..."

"America–" England began, but stopped.

America raised his head a little when he noticed someone standing in front of him, and his gaze met a pair of violet eyes staring at him. A heavy, dark aura started to rise, and America's hidden natural instinct of escaping in the face of danger somewhat woke up.

"A-me-ri-ca-aa," Finland said very emphatically.

"Y–Yes?"

"You are. Going back. To bed," Finland spoke very slowly to make himself clear.

"No!" America resisted. "I–"

"_**Now**_."

"Uh..." America tried to retreat out of the area to escape the 'stare' that Russia and Ukraine knew from the second World War. "I... uh..."

"..."

"But I–"

**"**_**..."**_

"Well, I guess... I'll go then..." America stared at the smaller nation and finally let the girls support him almost entirely.

"Good boy," Finland answered, but he didn't let his gaze wonder away from America. "You see, I'm not exactly eager to patch you up again."

When Seychelles, Liechtenstein and Canada helped America back into the room, France appeared at Finland's side.

"Have you perhaps spent too much time with Russia?" he asked hesitantly.

Finland turned to him looking honestly surprised. "Why?"

"Nothing, just wondering."

.*** *** ***

"So Norway, you can take Estonia with you and leave the rest to us," Germany said and the Nordic rose from his chair. "We promise to do our best to give you time."

Norway nodded, and – along with Estonia – he opened the door beside the one that America was sleeping behind and disappeared into another small room.

Germany continued on, unfazed, "Hungary. You take the lead of the backup group. You arrange us food, medicine and, if possible, friends. Don't give me that look, it's not an easy job. For starters, decide who you will take with you, so your teamwork is as excellent as possible. Liechtenstein and Seychelles will be your full-time helpers. Choose anyone free, except for certain people… For example... Belarus," he looked Russia's little sister. "Because I think that you would decline even if we tried."

"True."

"And I think you have more experience in fighting than, for example," he turned around towards the window opposite to the doorway that led outside. "You, Latvia."

The small Baltic nodded. "I would p-prefer the backup group, if th-that's possible."

"Good," Germany turned to Finland next. "Are you ready to continue as a medic?"

Finland sighed. "I guess. No fighting for me this time, huh?"

"No, but I want you to participate in planning the defence," Germany said and Finland nodded. "Italy. Would you work as a messenger between the groups?"

"Yo~ Captain!"

"Sealand," England interrupted. "You'll help Italy. Got it?"

"What? I can fight!" the smallest nation answered and showed his little fist to England, shaking it to prove a point.

"Maybe, but now you help Italy," England answered and gestured at Sweden to do something. "Sealand, try to understand that this isn't a game and we don't have time to deal with selfish wishes."

Sealand looked moody, but he obeyed. Germany was discussing the map in low tones with Austria and China. At the door, France was keeping Romano from escaping after Southern Italy had noticed that he would also be in the defence group. He failed.

"I'm not going to do this! I'll have, umm... Seychelles change with me!" Romano shouted and ran out of the door, leaving France behind him. Suddenly, he skidded to a halt and yelped, stumbling backwards.

"Whoa, easy there," said the woman in front of him. "I'm not gonna eat you. Okay?"

Spain appeared from the door with France, Denmark and Switzerland, and he pulled Romano out of the woman's reach.

"Who is it this time?" asked Switzerland as he held his loaded rifle in front of the woman's eyes.

"This time?" asked a man behind the woman and raised his hands to show Denmark he was unarmed. "So that one idiot really did come here, didn't he? I knew it was a bad idea to get lost."

The woman sighed. "Just as we expected then... Great, now I can forget my vacation." She glared at the man behind him. "And listen here, we didn't actually plan to get lost, did we."

At this point more nations had stepped outside. England stepped beside Switzerland and repeated the question. "Who are you?"

"We two are nations from the surrounding areas of this no-man's-land," answered the man, who had grey and light hair waving in the small breeze. "And please, we're not here to fight you."

"A no-man's-land?" repeated Japan, raising his eyebrows just as Norway and Estonia appeared from the hut.

"You know," said Denmark to the grey-haired man he was threatening with his axe. "Last time we heard about 'nations' we ended up with one superpower in a sickbed, so that won't help ye."

"What?" shouted the women with long black hair as she turned around to look at Denmark. She clearly did not give a shit about Switzerland's rifle, which would have normally kept people still and on edge. "Okay, so he attacked you already, what?"

"Why do you know something even we don't understand?" raged Switzerland, and he grabbed the woman's shoulder, turning her to face his gun again.

The woman took a deep breath and raised her hands. "Okay, okay. Now let's calm down a bit. I guess he didn't tell you anything, did he? Well, I can kinda understand his logic... Anyway, the point is now that you can relax, we're not going to attack you, we really. Just. Came. To. Talk. Okay? I'll explain to you some things about this place if you give me a chance."

.*** *** ***

"Here," said the man and spread a map to the table. "I knew you would be totally clueless so I brought this with me," he pointed at the centre of the map. There was a large area that was marked with only woods and meadows, plus some lonely buildings. There was no doubt what place that was. "This is the no-man's-land we were talking about. Our specific location is here," he moved his finger a little to the right. "This hut is marked here. The whole area is surrounded by five different nation's borders. The one you already met lives here," he pointed the country in the south. "He has the longest border with the no-man's-land. I live here beside him in the east. And she," he nodded at the female. "Is my northern neighbour and lives northeast from here."

"O-kay," said England and knit his brows. "Then what about that another one we saw?"

"What another one?" asked the man and looked up at him surprised.

"There was another one in here too," answered China and gestured in the air. "He was a little shorter and had hair that resembled a bird's nest... He did not speak a word while he was here."

For a moment the two foreign nations looked at him, bewildered, before the woman sighed deeply. "Oh shit, not that mad scientist again..."

The man sighed too and rested his forehead in his palm. "Alright," he snapped, pointing again at the map. "It's him. The western neighbour of your enemy. I was hoping for him to stay out of this."

"Is he that bad?" asked Taiwan innocently.

"No. He's a war-maniac."

"Oh..."

"Yes, he's usually a good guy, but when someone talks about war, he becomes hopeless. On the other hand, he has the weakest military of us all," the man smiled a little. "Because he spends all his time planning good attacks, formations and new weapons, he really has no time to do anything else, for example training his soldiers. It's been a while since he has actually done something."

"But he is clever, okay," interrupted the woman. "He would be a hella tough opponent if he would just finish his plans before the war is over."

"Sounds pretty harmless to me," Germany said, but inwardly he wondered what would happen if his brother had been on the same team as the pre-mentioned war-maniac nation.

"That's why I suggest that you don't concentrate on him," the man continued, nodding at Germany. "It's not even likely that he will show up again, so please worry about him first," he pointed the southern country on the map.

"Wait a moment," Switzerland stopped him and glared from one of the guests to the other. "There is still something I want to know first."

The woman looked at him, appearing thoughtful. "The Swiss Confederation, was that right? What would you like to know?"

"Why," the Swiss started and snapped his gun onto the map. "Do you know so much about us? He-" he snapped the southern country, "-did as well, and now you know a lot too..."

"Or do you perhaps think that you, too, have no obligations to answer our questions?" asked Austria to complement his neighbour's question.

The foreign nations looked at each other and then, after sharing a silent nod, the black-haired woman took a deep breath. "Okay, it might be better if I just spit it out as one explanation, so be sure to listen," she said and crossed her arms. "Okay, so the thing is that we are all lazy bums who don't want to do something the hard way."

The man looked at her with a face that was saying 'do you have to say it like that?', but the woman didn't notice and continued. "Okay, so basically we use magic, which isn't so unordinary here if you hadn't noticed, to spy and copy most of your technology. Of course we can see only some things that have already happened and because of time and spacial differences and other dilemmas, which we skip here because they're boring, there is always something hindering us, so technically we are always few decades behind you. Okay, that's why we know about you, but since magic is so uncommon in your world, you don't know about us. And since we preferred it that way we never spied on the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland or the Kingdom of Norway," she thought for a moment and then she nodded. "Yeah, to keep it simple, that's about it."

There were two kinds of expressions in the room. First, there were all the nations present from the planet Earth who had a very united expression of 'excuse me?' or in some cases such as Korea, England, Turkey, Denmark etc. it was more like, 'what the fuck?'. The other expression was the one of the grey haired foreign nation, and it was saying 'did you _really_ have to say it like that?'

And then there was one who didn't have any particular expression.

"Well then," Norway deadpanned. "Is there a possibility of ya helping me to ge' us home?"

"Norway!" Poland protested. "You're taking this, like, way too lightly! They're spying on us, you know! Like, watching every step and stuff! Copying our inventions for themselves! They're, like, monitoring us! Following us! Black-mailing us-!"

"No, Poland, black-mailing is a bit different," interrupted Lithuania from behind him.

Norway looked at him. "I don' care. They said they're not spyin' on me."

"Oi..."

"I'm afraid not," answered the man to Norway's question. "True, we can use magic, but although we want to help you, we have our own issues too."

When Norway raised his eyebrows, the woman explained further. "Even with our magic, spying on you is the best we can do. Dimensional travelling requires far stronger flows of magic to work than our minds can adapt with. We are yet to reach such levels. And this no-man's-land is... Well... A bit peculiar, okay? Let's say it affects our ability of reading the flows. The story would have been different if you hadn't appeared here. …Well, if you had appeared on our own areas, we could have done something, but out here it's not that simple."

"In other words," Norway said. "When we're here, ya can't help me with yar powers. But if we go somewher' ya can help, I won' be able to tell ya the right direction anymore."

"Exactly."

"Is it okay if I don't understand?" Poland asked, looking at Lithuania.

"It means that if they could send people through dimensions they would have already done it," explained England. "May I ask then, that if we are so valuable to you, why is one of you trying to kill us?"

The woman shook her head. "I'm not sure about his ambitions but I would guess that it has something to do with magic. It's just something stupid, okay."

"He has a strong army and is the largest country around here," explained the man. "But when it comes to magic he's far inferior. Cross-dimensional spying is the most advanced magic we have. That's why he constantly falls behind us in technology, which in turn makes him weaker."

"If he gets rid of us, you would all be in same line again, when you would have to invent your own technology," Germany spoke up, nodding to show his understanding.

"I see," said Japan. "There wouldn't be anyone to spy on."

"That is exactly why we don't want you to disappear," explained the woman and smiled. "You are our precious resources; we don't want our rival to harm you. Let's call it sustainable development. Alright, here," she leaned on the table. "This is what we offer you; for political reasons, we can't declare war on him, okay? But since I have no border line with him, I could..." she let her hand rest on the map. "...Lend you all the equipment you need to fight against him, starting with assault rifles, sniper rifles and handguns. How about it?"

"I cannot provide you with weapons, since this is about my neighbour, who is some four times bigger than me," continued the man after his companion had finished, and he crossed his arms. "However... I am ready to ensure that you have all the needed medicine and enough food for the time you must spend here."

"The deal is," continued the woman. "That you promise that more than ten of you escape here alive. If it's less, the benefits of getting you back home won't cover our upcoming political and economical problems with our southern friend anymore."

For a moment it was silent, and then England laughed. "What are you talking about?"

France smiled. "The number of us leaving here is thirty-seven."

* * *

A/N: I'll leave the foreign nations nameless, because I want you to know/remember they're sidecharacters. Thank you for all the reviewers and my amazing little Canadian proofreader.


	5. 4 The Teamworking Chapter

**4. The Teamworking Chapter**

**...in which Germany takes the lead**

Cuba took a gun into his hands and smiled. "Cool..."

"These really are old," Russia said and waved one rifle, carelessly testing it in his hand. He smiled and made a little laughing sound. "Brings back memories, da?"

"Umm..." answered Germany and tried to dodge the gun Russia pointed at him. "Yes, but try to remember we're on the same side this time, okay?"

"Can I have this?" they heard Switzerland asking and turned. The Swiss man in question was holding a sniper rifle, and aiming at some sort of target outside the window. His eyes were sparkling, although he clearly tried to hide it.

Germany turned to face him properly. "Do you want to be our sniper? I don't think anyone has any objections if you would like that."

"Definitely not," Spain smiled and played with two handguns before he ended up dropping one. "Swiss would make one helluva sniper."

"No objections," said England as he looked at Switzerland. "What do you say?"

Switzerland was suddenly wearing a grin no one had ever seen him make. "Say? Do I have to say something? I'll just keep this sniper rifle and kill them. Good enough?"

"Whee~ Swiss, you're scary," Italy smiled and peered down a rifle barrel.

In a split second, Germany had appeared beside the Italian and grabbed the gun from him, hitting him a little. "Have you forgotten how to hold a gun? Stop trying to shoot your brains into the backyard!"

"Hmm, but I take Switzerland's answer as a yes," commented France smiling behind his hand. "Looks like we have the first role in our shared play handed over, dears. Good process thus far, I'd say. And you really seem to like that rifle, Switzy."

"Call me that again and I'll test this on you," Switzerland answered as he took the rifle off its stand and nodded. "But yes, I like it. It's beautiful."

"Beautiful?" France asked and observed the rifle suspiciously. "You think so? Well, I guess that explains your hair style."

"_Excuse me?"_ Switzerland answered roughly. Austria had to take the gun away from him because the war's first victim was about to come up soon.

"And you stay out of this!" Switzerland tried to take his gun back, and for a while he and Austria looked like kids arguing over a toy.

"Switzerland," Austria said somewhat calmly. "I know it has been a long while since you have been allied with someone in war, but try to remember that according to the common standards of cooperation you are not supposed to kill your own confederates."

"Like I'd care," answered the Swiss bluntly. "I'll kill those who get on my nerves."

"That is exactly what I'm talking about."

"Brother, calm down," Liechtenstein appeared beside them. "We need everyone to get home."

Switzerland reluctantly lowered his hands and relaxed a bit.

Austria continued, "Listen to Liechtenstein, if you do not wish to take advice from me. If you want to take your revenge after we get back, however, I'm not going to stop you."

"Austria, you're mean." Hungary smiled and France's expression told he thought the same.

Germany smiled a little, and then his face sharpened as he raised his voice. "Alright everyone. We now have our first back-up supplies, and it is time for us to plan how we're going to make it through this all. I suggest we take off to have a look on the terrain now and work together to form a tactic the enemy doesn't have chance beating in six days a least."

"About that," Iceland piped up from the corner, where he had been familiarizing himself with his new handgun. "Norway told me to remind you that he must not be disturbed if it isn't very serious. Needs a lot of silence to concentrate, I guess."

Germany nodded. "I don't think anyone has any objections, after all, he is the only one able to get us home and he wants to do it properly. But to make this clear to everyone one more time, I now proclaim; disturbing Norway or Estonia is strictly forbidden unless something requires their attention immediately, or there is a danger they must know about for their own safety. Is that clear?"

"Yes, captain!" Italy cheered and saluted.

Germany looked at him and sighed. "Would you stop doing that? Besides, you still do that wrong. Which reminds me, we should decide on one or two of us who take the command and supervise the whole situation. This is going to be difficult if we start arguing our opinions like we're in kindergarten. Any candidates?" He looked around him and then started to look slightly depressed when he noticed all thirty fingers pointing on him.

Germany felt a pat on his shoulder and a cheerful voice trying to encourage him.

"Don't worry about it too much. Just think of this as a long war. You are an expert at winning against odds in a beginning of long wars, aren't you."

"England, that doesn't help me one bit, you know."

"Fight for it, captain."

"Shut it, Russia."

.*** *** ***

"Finland," England said and smiled a little.

The addressed nation turned to him, still hugging the old Finnish-style rifle with sparkling eyes.

"You're still in the backup group."

Finland's face fell as he realised he wouldn't be able to use his old WWII partner again. He looked at Germany, seemingly trying to look like a cute little puppy.

Germany frowned, grunting. "Finland, that expression doesn't really have any effect when you're holding a rifle."

Finland sighed and let the gun fall. "Okay, I got it, I'm in the backup group, okay..."

Germany smiled a little and prevented the Nordic from putting the gun back to the table. "But you can keep the gun. No one knows if you're going to have trouble at some point too."

"Ahoy, Germany!" Spain shouted from outside of the hut. "The expedition is missing its leader!"

_"So by this vote, we now declare Germany as our commanding officer," England said. _

"Coming!" shouted Germany back and then gestured for the others to follow him outside.

"We'll come after you as soon as we have our own get-together in order," Hungary yelled after him and Germany waved his hand, silently saying that they'd be waiting for them.

_"Hungary and Finland share the lead of the back-up group, Hungary as its supreme commander and Finland as head medic," England continued. "Finland, Liechtenstein, Latvia and Seychelles will be regular members of the back-up group; other members, including Hungary, change according to need."_

"What kind of commander is late for his first task?" asked Switzerland bitterly and rested his sniper rifle against his shoulder, showing his readiness to depart.

_"Switzerland will retreat from the front line and work as a sniper from behind the actual front as a primary back-up." the Brit nodded to the sniper. "The one assisting him in this job if necessary will be Lithuania."_

"Then let's depart," Germany announced, starting to walk in the direction where, according to their map, was their enemy's territory.

Sweden took Sealand's hand and pulled him close. "Remem'er to be alert. Ya've a job, 'kay?"

Sealand saluted. "Yes Pap– umm sir."

Sweden's expression softened and they followed the others into the forest.

_England coughed once. "Northern Italy and Sealand will be our messengers. You're in charge of communication between the groups," he sighed deeply, "since the concept of communication technology seems to be unknown to our allies. Funny, I haven't even thought about using telepathy on a battlefield."_

"Well then," Germany said when they had walked a little while and turned to look at those following him over his shoulder. "We need all your experience right now if we want to win this. Please bring any ideas you have so we can consider and develop our plans. Remember that we need to last for six days and we don't know exactly what we are up against."

_"From this point, we're all on the same side for the first time in war history. For this following week, we all are after the same goal." England straightened. "Our main task is to protect Norway and that way ensure us all a safe homecoming. If no one has objections to that, let's head out and prepare to kick some ass. Well? Objections? No? Good."_

_.*** *** ***  
_

"A sickle tactic?"

China nodded. "That could work, I guess. Though our numbers are pretty limited."

"We can turn it into one more suitable for this situation," Japan said and turned to look at Germany. "Is it possible to actually make a formation that prevents them from surrounding us even when there are so few of us?"

Russia answered. "What if we make the sickle a double-bladed one, da?"

"Excuse me for being stupid," Spain interrupted and tilted his head questionably. "But what is a 'sickle tactic'?"

"It's the way Germany invaded me during the second world war," France answered, shivering. "He marched with his army through Belgium and encircled my troops stationed on the border."

Germany shook his head. "It was a ridiculous idea. It might have worked, but it was bluntly stupid. We stood for days in a fine long line on a Belgian road, in the open, waiting for an order to move forward. We were practically waiting for you to notice what we were doing and shoot at us."

"Well we didn't," answered England. "Because we didn't think you would be so stupid as to try that way. Do you think the same would work now?"

Germany frowned. "Maybe. But I wouldn't trust that tactic too much."

"Germany!"

They turned and saw Turkey waving to them from afar.

"Come 'ere for a sec!" the Mediterranean nation shouted, and gestured for their commander. "Lokee 'ere what've we found!"

Germany went and the others followed him. Waiting for them was an already familiar view.

"That makes it the third one," Germany kneeled and prodded at the soil. "Some battle really has been going on here in history."

"But to tell you the truth, pal, they're pretty pathetic," Turkey raised his arms to his sides briefly. "Even if they were just old, they'd still have been only scratches when they were new."

"But they do come in handy," China noted. "Now we do not have build so much ourselves, which would have been a complete waste of energy."

Germany took the map he had held onto, and a pen they'd gotten from their allies as well, and started to draw a neat line across the paper. It was the third old trench they had found in the woods. They were all made to defend in the same direction, north. The hut, or in other words, their headquarters, seemed to have some defences ready for them after all.

"We have to ask our allies about these trenches. Maybe they have fought against our enemy here, or someone they know has," Japan said and tried lying down behind one embankment. He pointed his rifle through the underbrush to the awaiting forest. "I think these really need some brushing up, but I think we can easily do that much."

"It is not the biggest problem we have right now after all," Germany answered, and then spotted Sweden walking in the forest Japan was aiming. "Japan, stay in that position for a while. Sweden!"

The Nordic turned when he heard his name called. Germany waved his hand once and continued. "Look here from the spot you're at now and tell me; do you see Japan?"

Sweden frowned and searched for the Asian with his eyes. Then he saw the rifle within the brush, and pointed at the location.

Germany nodded. "Okay, so try and take cover yourself, and then look again,"

Sweden disappeared behind the trees and pushes. Japan stayed in his stance waiting. After a while they saw Sweden rising up again (from a totally different place he had disappeared in). He shook his head. Germany smiled a little and shouted a thank you to the Nordic before giving Japan permission to break his stance. Now he knew how much the trenches needed to be improved at least. And to his relief, it was not much.

Suddenly Switzerland appeared beside him, with Lithuania behind him. "Germany, I have a suggestion."

"Yes?" Germany turned and everyone gave their attention to their sniper. Japan rose up to listen as well.

"Considering your test just now." Switzerland nodded towards Sweden who was coming towards them now. "And my job. I'm going to climb to a tree."

"Does that not make you a perfect target to almost anything?" China noted.

"I was getting to that," Switzerland gave a look to France. "You said it was 'our shared play', didn't you?" He turned back to Germany, who had already got the point and nodded.

"Let's act a little."

.*** *** ***

Switzerland shifted on a branch and tried balancing his rifle between two smaller ones. Lithuania moved below him trying to make himself comfortable. When the sniper was ready he gave Lithuania a nod. His assistant nodded back, raised his hand to his side and started waving a small, white piece of paper. Immediately, similar white pieces rose all around the forest. These sad, quickly-made excuses for flags had been made by tearing apart most of their current supply of paper that they had borrowed from Norway's share of their backup supplies. Originally, it had been meant for writing their ideas and tactics down, but they needed to adapt to their needs.

Switzerland frowned. "How many do you see?" he asked Lithuania.

Lithuania grunted and observed the forest for a while. "Seven. No, wait, eight."

Switzerland huffed. "That's too many. I was sure this would be a good place... I see fifteen people from where I currently am."

"So you would be able to shoot seven without being noticed?" Germany confirmed below him and made a note to his papers. "Who would be dead by now?"

"Italy, Austria, Poland, Cuba, France, Iceland and Korea," Switzerland listed. "And then there's eight more that could also shoot me; Sweden, Belgium, Greece, Hong Kong, China, Turkey, Belarus and Sealand."

Germany made fast but accurate markings to the map China had quickly illustrated for this specific area. "That's almost everyone. Seven you see and eight who also see you so... It leaves five who are completely hidden,"

Switzerland took his gun and huffed again. "Yeah. I'll pick another spot and we'll try again. Lithuania will try that other tree we marked,"

"Yes, sir," his assistant replied, and they both started climbing down.

Germany moved forward and raised his voice to tell everyone the results. He told everyone, except those who had remained unseen, to move their positions and reminded them that they were now attackers. Excluding helping Switzerland plan his positions, doing this would also gain more knowledge from the grounds they would be battling on. By crawling and hiding in the underbrush, they could think up and memorize the spots an average attacker would use. Then they could make them useless.

Next they had to hope that their enemy would be as straightforward their allies had claimed; that they would attack head on from south and not creep around them, like England and Russia noted they might do. Their numbers weren't quite enough to keep up with an encircling.

.*** *** ***

"I just hope we're not being deceived," Netherlands said as he dusted off a piece of cloth he had used to clean the benches, while carefully listening to everything Hungary came up with. "If this is just part of their plan, this is going to be a tough one."

"I've been thinking about that," Hungary answered and put her pen down. Although she had complained first about being in the backup group, she was now having fun thinking up how everything would work behind the scenes. After all, the actors couldn't do their jobs well if the staging wasn't done properly. Now they were discussing about where the supplies and ammo would be placed in the small hut. "But why would they sent us medicine and guns before killing us, when they could have just got on with it?"

"Maybe it's local custom?" Finland suggested, coming from the little room America was sleeping in. He wiggled his fingers, trying to make up a good reason. "Something like... A ritual before sacrificing an offering to an ancient god of a family."

"...W-what kind of a family deity needs forty _nation_ offerings before it's satisfied?" Latvia wondered, wrinkling a stack of papers with his fingers.

"Well..."

"Don't answer that," Hungary warned.

"How is America?" Seychelles asked politely.

"Mumbling something about being a hero, so I think he currently isn't dying."

Liechtenstein tilted her head and joined the conversation. "Isn't the moment before your death the moment you start telling everyone about your dreams?"

"Then America has been dying for a century already."

"Oh yes, that's right..."

.*** *** ***

Estonia sat quietly, looking at Norway, who was sitting on the floor and mumbling something Estonia couldn't understand. He was also writing and drawing something on his papers that Estonia swore even Norway himself couldn't understand. Seven papers were already full of something that looked like ancient runes, and the one Norway was using right at that moment looked like some kind of a geometrical disorder.

"Estonia." Norway stopped drawing a triangle. "What do ye get when ye divide 26 by three and raise it to the third power?"

Estonia frowned and grunted, closing his eyes. He took a while to calculate. "Six hundred... fifty point... ninety?"

"Round it up. An' if we assume tha's a diameter of a circle, wha's the surface area?" Norway continued, tapping his pen on the floor.

Estonia's frown deepened and he grabbed some paper, taking up his own pen. He massaged his temples, trying to multiply a number with pi in his head. While he was drawing numbers on his paper, Norway waited for an answer more or less patiently. They both knew they had to careful with their calculations.

Estonia bit his lip. "How accurate of a figure do you want?"

"As accurate as possible, but it I woul' prefer ye'd be sure 'bout the answer and not jes guess," Norway answered, tapping the pen on the floor again.

Estonia returned to his calculations. After a moment, he spoke again. "Something around 332 850. I can't get it more accurate."

"Enough, thanks."

"Norway, what are you planning? That's one hell of a circle."

"Tha's square centimetres."

"Oh... It's still quite big."

"I can't make it much smaller. Actually, I think I have to make bigger. Now help me with this paper."

"Got it."

* * *

A/N: Sorry for the lateness, thanks for everything else.

**Fai'swingedchronicles: **You think so? Well it is quite choatic in the beginning, I admit. I can't say if the ending is the same way, but that's up to you to decide.


	6. 5 The Gunfiring Chapter

**5. The Gunfiring Chapter**

**...in which the war has its prelude**

England lay silently beneath the branches and waited. Most of the mist had disappeared by now. He furrowed his thick eyebrows as he scanned the area. From here he should see almost anything moving and coming towards them. For a moment, he had planned to go further away from the thirteenth line of their formation, but he had given up the idea after deciding he didn't want to get caught by the enemy by accident.

England checked his hiding place one more time, ensuring that he couldn't be seen from any direction. If it weren't for their allies, who had taught them about the characteristics of their enemy, they would have had a hard time planning their locations. Now they just had to trust that their allies hadn't made a mistake. They probably hadn't, since - from what they had learned - the locals seemed to fight about something all the time.

Their formation was a result of the hard thinking of twenty war-experienced nations and it was supposed to keep them all alive for four more days. With the help of their allies, they had been able reduce England's 'decrease points' from all perspectives. Not one of them was an increase point yet, but they were near enough to zero for that it contented England.

.*** *** ***

Germany looked at his map again. Red lines marked their trenches. Blue spots told the places Switzerland would be hiding, two spots behind every trench. Blue lines showed the area of their backup, where four medics at the time were stationed and the two messengers were placed behind every line. And the red circle, far away from their current location, was their headquarters.

Germany glanced to his right. Denmark was still busy thinking where he would carry his axe, since it wasn't really comfortable hanging on his back. Behind him, Sweden was lying on his back on the dirt, gazing up at the sky like he was at a picnic - except for the rifle he was holding, of course. After him, next in line was Poland and the next one, Lithuania, was out of Germany's sight, behind a little corner in the bushes.

The German glanced over to where Russia was pulling a straw of grass in two, looking bored. Between them should have been England, his second-in-command. Germany glanced over his shoulder to the south. He hoped that England wouldn't come back soon.

.*** *** ***

Japan sat calmly in his spot, waiting. He had already forgotten to be nervous. Southern Italy, however, did quite the opposite – he did remember to be nervous. He was lying on his stomach on the moss behind the trench, still cursing his bad luck. Hong Kong patted his back encouragingly, while Spain just giggled on the other side of Japan, but said nothing otherwise. Romano had always been like that when it was time to work, but this time it was more frustrating for him since running was out of question. And it was more fun for Spain, watching him sulk.

Spain's little bouts of laughter made Japan relax a little too. He hadn't even noticed how tense he actually was. Japan took a deep breath; he had to be on his best since he was the right wing commander. All thirteen lines were planned to utilize the changes of the terrain and everyone's strength. The line they currently were in had only the center and the right wing, since on the left of them was an open field. Under the lead of Turkey, they had mined it and set other traps to hold possible trespassers.

Japan sighed. Because of this, the left wing with its commander, China, had been merged with the other parts. With only twenty-two of them, they possibly couldn't do more than that.

.*** *** ***

Hungary nabbed fir needles and fallen leaves from the green moss under her, and followed with her other eye how Australia was teaching Sealand a few more tricks that could come in handy. The young messenger had been in an intense training of both groups until now. Finland had even taught him how to use a handgun if necessary- and Sweden had given a lesson of 'how to avoid the necessity of using a handgun' right after that. The young nation, Italy at his side, had been studying and running a lot by now. And still he was eager to hear more from the Australian, Hungary noted, much to her delight.

Netherlands attempted to gain her attention from her other side, and Hungary turned to answer. Cuba noted something mentally as well, laughing. Hungary was very happy with her unit. Everyone had shown guts and cleverness and had been very calm while everything had progressed. Yes, their commander was very satisfied with them all. She smiled at Netherlands and turned her attention back to the soft moss. The longer she had a change to lie on this certain spot, the better. It would mean they were doing well.

.*** *** ***

Finland sat down at America's side, leaning on his knees and listening to his patient's breathing. America was doing well, much to his relief. He was still sleeping most of the day, but it was better that way for both him and Finland, the latter because America didn't usually want to stay in bed.

At that moment, Liechtenstein returned from her security stroll and noted happily that it was silent and peaceful. Seychelles appeared from the other end of the room and the girls began to chat quietly with each other. Finland smiled at their happy-go-lucky enthusiasm and wondered if it was silent outside because there wasn't anyone there, or because there was someone more skilled with this kind of stuff. He rapped the gun with his fingers and glanced out the window beside him.

It was a peaceful morning in early summer. Yesterday, it had been raining and the ground was still a little wet. To what Finland could see, everything was okay and waiting for the slowly rising sun. What he could understand was a bit different. Turning back to listen the chatter of the girls, America's quiet breathing and Norway's swearing from the other room, Finland tried to hold back the desire to go out to the frontline. The worst part of being the medic was the waiting that he would be needed to do.

.*** *** ***

Germany jumped a little when England dropped down beside him into the one meter deep trench.

"We're at it," England said and Germany nodded, sending a signal through the line. Everyone grabbed their guns as soon as they saw the person next to them getting to the stance. Lithuania sent the signal up to Switzerland, who loaded his gun and started to wait eyes peeled to the forest.

Germany turned to England as they both got into their places. "Any artillery?"

England shook his head. "Didn't see any. Maybe Mrs. Ally One was right when she said that he was too proud to use his full capability against forty unarmed opponents and he would probably test us first anyway. I saw only humans. And I personally don't even believe they'll expect us to be this far from the hut, if to be here at all."

Germany grunted. "Let's hope that way. How many did you see?"

"I didn't actually stay long enough to count," England whispered back. "But more than fifty, of that I'm sure."

"Okay," Germany loaded his gun. "That makes it about two and a half per one of us, right? Doesn't sound so bad yet."

.*** *** ***

"F-Finland!" Latvia shrieked 'quietly' as he opened the door. The Nordic, startled, took his eyes off America and turned them onto the nervous Baltic. Latvia pointed at the main door. "It– it's begun! You can hear it from here!"

Finland rose and followed the young Baltic outside where the two girls already were. It wasn't clear, since the front lines were fairly far out, but since the forest was silent, it could be heard clearly in the still morning air. Gunshots.

Liechtenstein smiled nervously. "We'd better get ready. Don't you think?"

Finland nodded. "Yeah."

Latvia wrinkled the helm of his jacket. "We'll... win, right?"

Finland gave him a little smile and nodded again. "Yeah." This time, he sounded a little cheerful.

.*** *** ***

Germany shouted something to Russia. After that, he could see Russia obey, but he didn't remember what exactly he had said. He just knew it was the right thing to do. It didn't bother him longer than a few seconds. Then he concentrated on the gunfire that hit the ground around him again. They'd caught their enemy off guard, but now the humans were ready to fight back.

Beside him, England swore loudly when a bullet hit the tree near him, causing a small shower of dew drops to cover him. Not that it really mattered; he was already wet from crawling through the underbrush. But it wasn't comfortable either way, so he took aim and shot in the direction that his enemy laid hidden. He hoped others saw the enemy better than he did right now.

The tree Switzerland had chosen was quite far from the trenches, though close enough for him to be deadly. He could see them. He had seen the humans before others did and had been the first to shoot. Now he was aiming for a man that was clearly some kind of an officer, reckoning from the amount of shouting he did at the others around him. The rifle fit in Switzerland's hands so well after only a few days that he didn't need much time to take aim and get rid of his target.

When the second lieutenant croaked, falling to the moss right when he tried to move behind a mound, his companion cursed. They'd been informed that there was a possibility of resistance, but no one had told them about the kind of pros that they were battling with now, and no one had mentioned snipers whatsoever. The sergeant glared at the forest from his hideout, searching for the hidden sharpshooter. He shot in the direction that he saw movement the moment it happened.

Turkey slipped just under a round of gunshots, whistling, and hid himself in the trench for a few seconds before returning the favour.

Taiwan saw Turkey dive to avoid a rain of bullets as he landed beside her. She just made sure that the man was unharmed out of her peripheral vision, before returning her full attention to the bushes she had been keeping under surveillance. She wondered if her enemy was afraid of her. Right when she was about to release the humans from all their fears, someone else did the job for her.

A shriek sounded from the bushes and they swayed once. Lithuania saw the man who fell: a young, brown-haired boy, blood running down his uniform's chest. Lithuania clenched his teeth and crouched down for moment. He hated war. All this idiotic killing without any sense of preserving humanity. This bloodshed on a beautiful morning. This... He stood up and killed another man who showed his head too high over the underbrush.

Poland could sense the anxiety of his neighbour. The blonde didn't blame him, but he too knew what they had to do. He was shooting a spring of bullets towards the group of young trees. The thin trunks shattered in sharp strands and one tree even fell. He could hear shouts the humans hiding behind the trees. He could also tell he wasn't shooting at the direction trees alone.

Korea watched one of the trees fall and congratulated himself inwardly. The man staggered into sight, his eyes filled with blood that ran down his face from a head wound. The young Asian aimed, fired, and let the man follow the fate of the fallen tree.

China was shooting a series of carefully aimed bullets at the enemy lines. Korea, who was beside him, showed some skilled shooting as well. Not one nation had had trouble using the old weapons their allies had given to them. China was holding a Russian rifle from the beginning of the sixties, but it was just fine for him. He moved behind a slightly higher mound and on top of it he gave his enemies a taste of skills of the oldest nation present. His skills hadn't rusted in the long years that they had gone unused.

The soldier shouted out in frustration and shock as his companion got his share of bullets to the shoulder. He turned to help his friend and handed him to a few beginners who were facing their first real war. As they helped his friend retreat, he grabbed up a hand-grenade. The enemy was too far away for an accurate hit, but he was too frustrated not to try.

Belarus shrieked a warning.

Austria was alerted by the warning and dove away from the edge of the trench, taking cover. The grenade exploded a few meters away on his right side, tossing moss and dirt on him, but luckily leaving him unharmed. To the right of him, he could see Iceland and Belarus standing up again after dodging the same grenade. As the orders were, he sent the new information to his end of the line as Belarus sent it to another direction.

When the information of the grenades reached the end of the centre line and Greece, he was already familiar with them. Again, he saw one flying towards him. He threw the fist size rock he had grabbed from the bottom of the trench and it hit the grenade just enough to divert it away from him. It exploded a few metres away from the trench. He had known it would be useful some day; that is, hitting Turkey with the closest object he could find every time he had seen him in past ten years. Greece aimed his gun immediately when the shock that the bomb had caused calmed down.

Belgium was the last in the left wing to receive information about the bombs. They had few of their own, but Germany had told them to be cautious with them, because not a great amount had arrived yet. Belgium crawled a bit out of the end of the trench on her stomach and rolled behind an old tree. His enemies had just seen her in the trench and were now shooting towards her previous position. Belgium saw them now.

But they didn't see her.

France noted somewhere in his mind that Belgium had left his side. But, knowing the girl, she would know what she was doing. France had a currently dilemma with an enemy he couldn't see; and said enemy obviously knew where he was. He had tried a couple of locations by now, but it had been of no good. He needed something with a wider range. France grabbed a grenade from his belt and apologised to Germany for wasting their supplies, but he felt he really needed this.

Japan rolled behind the corner just in time to see France toss the grenade over his shoulder. At that moment a bullet drilled into the tree trunk beside him, and he automatically stooped down to protect himself. He turned to glare at the enemy lines, raising his rifle up and sending a rain of shots into the forest. He saw a few humans trying to charge towards their trenches. Against him, they didn't stand a chance.

Romano crouched down in the trench, clutching his gun and telling himself to get up and shoot. This war fought against everything he usually did. He peeked up from his position and watched the results of their wing commander's marksmanship. One escaped a little further towards them and Romano raised his gun as their gazes met; however, his hands were shaking too much for him to shoot.

Lucky for him, Spain shot the approaching man down and patted Romano's head to encourage him, before he hurried forward to Japan. While running, he took one of his own hand-grenades and threw it out of their trench without pausing in his stride. Clearly, the enemy didn't have the overwhelming superior forces they had been expecting. Spain didn't know about the others, but he was going to make the most of it. And Germany's instructions had been, 'do your best'.

Germany sat down to change the bullet case within his rifle. He had sent word to Switzerland to shoot anyone with grenades in their hands. He had sent Ukraine and Egypt to guard the open field, since it seemed their traps had exploded. He had had to move more people to the left wing to balance the powers. But even with these, they were doing well; Hungary and the back-up group, as well as the messengers, were still in their places, since no major injuries had been reported. Germany stood up and took his place between England and Denmark.

Denmark's axe lay behind the trench in the moss; he was going to take it when they'd have to retreat, or, if he needed it before, it was near enough to grab. Denmark preferred one-on-one battles, especially now when he could hardly see had he missed or hit and how badly he'd been off. He grinned and crouched down a bit, moving just beside Sweden, and to a better position to shoot at the man he saw lying behind a thick tree. The human had been bugging him and the nearby centre wingers for a while with his well-aimed shots. But now Denmark was going to get him.

Sweden gave way to his neighbour, in the back of his mind wondering what Denmark was doing. While thinking this, he saw a grenade flying through the air again and he shifted his stance to shoot it before it landed.

The grenade flying towards Russia exploded to tiny pieces with a loud sound. Russia smiled gratefully at Sweden, but the Nordic missed the gratitude, as he was quite far away from the Russian. Russia then turned his smile towards their enemies. They missed it too, but for a different reason.

That moment a loud, suffering cry rang through the trenches. Shouting was nothing new in itself. What made this cry special was that it rose from their own lines.

After two hours of fighting, the war had claimed its first victim from their side.

* * *

A/N:"Their formation was a result of the hard thinking of twenty war-experienced nations" or then it was the result of the hard thinking of one foolish author who has no real life experience in this stuff, but it's still supposed to keep them alive for four days. I hope the fighting part was written well and was understandable, it was pretty hard to describe how it looked in my mind.

I bow to all who commented the last chapter. You made me really happy.

Scott: you're making me very happy as well.


	7. 6 The Retreating Chapter

**6. The Retreating Chapter**

**...in which the war starts taking casualties**

The grenade exploded in front of him. He had seen it coming a bit too late, only able to stagger backwards and cover his eyes automatically before the explosion threw him backwards like a ragdoll, and the sharp shrapnel from the explosion tore his skin. For a split second he screamed, then the shockwave bashed him against a tree. His cry was cut short as he slumped down, unconscious, behind their trench.

Austria heard the cry as well, and it made his heart skip a few beats. When the explosion stopped tossing soil over him he raised his head, eyes darting around in search of his comrade. It took him merely two seconds to find him as the dust slowly settled down. Austria sprang up and pulled the man back to the trench, while Belarus covered him.

"Iceland!" Austria called, but received no answer. The Nordic was covered in blood all over his body and he was completely slack in his arms. Austria's eyes and hands explored the injuries, trying to determine if Iceland's life was in immediate danger. Lithuania appeared beside him as Belarus continued to cover them, doing the share of work for all three.

"Go send Germany a message," Austria ordered and the Baltic retreated to obey. Austria gathered Iceland into his arms. "Belarus!"

"Take him away!" the woman shouted back, hissing and they both stood up. Austria held the wounded Nordic as he climbed through a narrow passage that led him behind the protection mounds they had been building out of the soil. Belarus covered him until he was out of the line of fire.

"Hungary!" Austria called and set the Nordic on the ground, grabbing his gun once more and shooting over the protection mounds.

The medics were already coming, having heard the scream before. Hungary bent over Iceland as Netherlands and Cuba prepared to carry him away. When the men were ready, she turned to Austria, making him stop shooting for while as she pulled him safely behind the mounds. "Go back, we'll take him now," the woman told him and briefly touched the man's hair before retreating to do her own job. "Let's go, boys," she said, grabbing her gun. At the same time that Austria slipped back towards the trenches, Hungary and the rest of the back-up group started retreating back to their position.

When they got back to their hide-out, Cuba and Netherlands carefully placed the stretcher on the ground and started to explore the injuries. Australia came to them with towels and other clothes to stop the bleeding. Sealand stared at Iceland, not knowing what should he think or do. Italy turned away, sickened.

"Sealand," Hungary got the youngster's attention. "You run to headquarters and tell Finland what's coming to him. Tell him Iceland needs immediate medical attention. Australia and Netherlands will bring him, but be sure they meet us before the headquarters; we need them back here as soon as possible."

"Yes, ma'am," Sealand saluted, still staring at the wounded nation.

"We'll have to patch him up here before we can move him, so you crawl to Germany and ask him if there is anything else the headquarters needs to be reported of," Hungary continued and pushed the boy to make him leave. "Remember that this is not a practice anymore, you have to get it right."

"Got it, ma'am!" Sealand checked his gun and started quickly crouch and crawl towards the frontline. Italy looked after him and wished luck, before Hungary ordered him to help them.

.*** *** ***

Germany listened silently to the message Lithuania came to deliver. Iceland had been hit by a grenade and was removed from the line. Denmark and Sweden listened to the information in shock, but both said nothing. Instead, they both started shooting their enemies considerably more eagerly than before. Germany nodded at the information and sent Lithuania back to his position.

A moment later, Poland passed Sweden a message from the left end of the line; from China. The field they had set traps on was about to be breached. Ukraine and Egypt couldn't keep their enemies from approaching them from that side, as the most of the traps had already gone off. China had moved there to help them, but it was a problem that the enemy might get past their lines.

Then, Sealand decided to appear at the trench to ask him if there was anything that the commander wished to be said to headquarters, as the runner would be sent now. Germany closed his eyes for a few seconds, thinking. England, who stood beside him, continued shooting, but quickly glanced at Germany a couple of times. Germany thought about their options. He opened his eyes and waved England and Denmark down to also listen.

"We'll retreat to the next line and spread the left wing," Germany explained them and quickly showed them his map, moving his finger between their current line and the second one. "We are better off preventing the encircling that way, and the eleventh line is easier to protect than this one," he pointed to the changes in the ground's height. "We'll be able to fight downhill and shoot into a more open ground. We'll wait fifteen minutes, so the medics can move Iceland out of the way first and the message reaches everyone for sure. That is all."

England and Denmark nodded and crawled away to pass the order to retreat through the lines. Germany turned to Sealand.

"Tell the back-up group about the new turn," the commander ordered and shooed the boy off. "And pass the full situation to Finland, when you meet him."

The micro-nation saluted and raced back behind the lines the way he had so many times rehearsed during the two days they'd had.

The message of the decision ran through the lines, finally reaching the right end, Belgium, and the left end, Ukraine. The line of nations started to back up; one-by-one, they rose from the trench and crawled behind the protection mounds. Metre-by-metre, always shooting, they backed up to reach their next trench, the eleventh line. At the same time, the left wing started to spread out as the nations slowly moved to their firing positions while retreating, immediately stopping when the fatal, trapped field was behind them.

When the last straw of hay swayed as he passed by and slipped into a cover of a thick rooted tree, Egypt sighed in relief. The field had been a pain in the neck. To Turkey's credit, it must be said that the traps had held the enemy back quite a while. Egypt made a mental note to give the Turk some gratitude when he would see him.

Said nation was currently sprinting away from rapid fire, and he dove behind a big rock, rolling the last few meters until he had his back against the cool boulder. Turkey took a deep breath and listened to some bullets striking the stone behind him. He glanced to his right and grinned widely before turning to lay on his stomach on the moss. He returned the fire, keeping the rock as his protection. At the same time, Greece did the same thing on the other side of the rock.

Sealand ran. He jumped over the rocks and roots, flying towards their headquarters with his short feet. Behind him, somewhere far away already, followed the medics that were carrying Iceland.

Switzerland jumped down from the tree immediately when Lithuania sent him the signal. He had to get to the eleventh line well before the others, because although his firing spots were relatively covered, getting up to them was not. If the enemy saw him climbing up...

As soon as Russia disappeared behind the mounds, Germany rose up to follow, being the last one to exit the twelfth line. He shot a couple of people before disappearing behind the mounds. A few bullets struck said mounds not a moment afterwards.

France crawled for the last metre and disappeared to the bushes, out of his enemies' sight. He exhaled, trying to remain calm. His fingers ran through his dusty hair and he sighed heavily. "I'm not made for this..."

Hungary retreated slowly, letting the frontline slightly catch up with her.

Poland squeaked as a rain of bullets hit a tree above him and decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to retreat a bit further before shooting back.

Their enemy had noticed what they were doing. "Retreating?" the captain demanded from the messenger. "Cowards..." he huffed. "But clever ones. And fucking skilled..."

"Ukraine!" Denmark shrieked and glanced over his shoulder while they fired their weapons. The woman looked up at him. Denmark frowned and shouted to make sure she heard him. "You're going too fast!"

Ukraine laughed nervously and slowed down so she wouldn't leave a gap in the line. She had quite a distance to move as the orders had taken the right wing member to the left end of the centre.

England cursed three times in succession.

If anyone in the backup group needed to be replaced right now, Romano was willing to change. That was the only thing the older Italian had in his head, while he tried to make one of the attackers stop shooting in his direction all the time.

The eleventh line was close already. Now they had to cross the open ground that they were planning on using to their advantage later. Sealand had crossed it, the medics had crossed it, Switzerland had crossed it; now it was their turn. Canada forgot about shooting back for a while and concentrated on getting across as quickly as he could. Taiwan covered him.

A pained scream told them someone had been hit again. This time the cry wasn't short, but continued on, when the victim's consciousness didn't fail.

Germany's head jerked up and he glanced to his left, clenching his teeth. "Who was it?" he shouted the question to Russia, as England was currently a little further behind them.

Russia shook his head and sniped one more persistent soldier.

Japan swung the gun onto his back and crouched down to grab the howling Asian by the armpits, dragging him to cover. Hong Kong bit his teeth and breathed heavily into the other's shoulder. The bullet had shattered his kneecap.

"Hang in there," Japan held him encouragingly as Spain, who had just got to them, took a piece of bandage from the small supplies they all carried with them and tied it over the knee.

Hong Kong croaked and moaned, shaking and clenching his fists. "Where," he started, making Japan turn his attention away from Hong Kong's bloody leg. "Is my gun?" Japan stared at him, unsure of what to say, but Hong Kong didn't notice. He just glared at the mound that was protecting them, like he could see through it. "I want to shoot someone."

.*** *** ***

"Ice?" Finland asked worriedly and Sealand nodded, still breathing heavily.

"They're bringing him back now," the child messenger explained to the medic. "Hungary said you need to come to get them, so the boys can come back soon. And Germany wanted to tell you that they're retreating to the next line now, because the enemy was going to come from the field and go around them and–"

"It's called encircling, Sealand," Finland explained as the messenger eagerly took the water Seychelles offered him. Then the Nordic turned. "Liechtenstein, I want you to come with me to meet them. Latvia, Seychelles, you two stay here and make sure everything's ready for us."

"Yes, sir," Seychelles promised and Latvia nodded, standing in the doorway of America's side room.

"Liechtenstein, Sealand, let's go," Finland ordered and, after grabbing some treating supplies with them, they started out to meet with Netherlands and Australia.

.*** *** ***

The first day of fighting was hell to them. From the early morning hours 'til late into the night, they fought against superior forces and ended up retreating six lines in total, using half of their available trenches. The breaks they had were minimal; the food they ate was only consumed due to absolute necessity. And the casualties were over what Germany had calculated.

Now, when the enemy had ceased its attack for the night, Germany had time to take a deep breath and rethink their positions. They had retreated too much for one day. It couldn't continue like this, or else they would end up protecting the hut for two days. They would have to hold their current grounds longer or even try to win back some of the lost lines if they wanted to fulfill their purpose.

The good thing was that their enemy was now being cautious. It had lost a huge amount of soldiers in one day, while none of the nations had actually died. The enemy had seen the gap between the experience and physical tolerance of nations and normal humans. Germany could only thank everyone for fighting so bravely. No one had died, which made a huge success out of one of their main targets. It was lucky that the nations were sturdy and bull-headed.

The number of the ones who were unable to battle, however, was higher.

Iceland was still unconscious. Finland had been able to save the island nation from death, but now Iceland was lying on the bed beside America's, not moving an inch. To their malice, Spain was in the same state, after falling from a cliff when a bomb had hit near him and he had lost his balance. Luckily, the cliff hadn't been high, but Spain's landing had been bad enough and the Spaniard was now lying on the third bed in the small room, bandages around his head and neck, unconscious.

Hong Kong was unable to walk. When Sealand - with Netherlands and Australia - had been returning to the frontlines after handing Iceland over to Finland, they had ran straight into Cuba, who had been carrying the Asian to the headquarters. When they had finally returned to their positions, Australia was immediately replaced by Ukraine, and Netherlands had turned back to help the injured Belgium retreat from the frontline. At some point of the day, Germany had been covering Poland and England, who had been dragging the injured Lithuania between them.

Belgium was relatively okay. She had a seemingly nasty but not very deep wound in her shoulder and chest, caused by the shard of a bomb. In comparison to her, Lithuania could hardly move his upper body because his right side, including two of his ribs, had been shattered by a bullet.

Including the ones already mentioned, the nations Finland had treated today were Canada, who had had a bullet in his upper arm; Netherlands, who had a bullet strike his buttock in the third retreating phase; Romano, in which case no one knew what actually had happened, but there he was, hand tightly bandaged; and Korea, who had had a bullet catch the side of his head. The young Asian had caused China to have a heart attack when he had slumped into the seventh trench, a great amount of blood running out from under his left ear. The elder had thought the time for someone of them to die had finally come and had all but calmly handled the situation. The only good thing about China's shock had been the rage unleashed afterwards. He had been killing the nearby enemies until Turkey had noted Korea wasn't actually dead.

Germany sighed slowly, striking the map with his pen. England looked up at him, while holding the lamp that was illuminating the paper. A little bit beside them, Denmark was bandaging his scratched arm, using his teeth to tighten the cloth. Switzerland stepped in from the door.

The sixth line didn't have a trench in the centre and the right wing was almost missing, because of a curve in the ground that made it a long, deep slope. Japan was in charge of anyone trying to get up that way, and so the right wing would be spread to curve with the edge of the slope if necessary. The reason why the centre didn't have trenches was because of three huts with a high stone foundation that they were using instead. Although protecting a building could prove fatal, their limited time hadn't given them chance to dig as many trenches as they would have liked, so the decision to use the huts had given them more time for planning the other lines.

"Germany," Switzerland stepped in front of their commander. "Where will I stay in this line? I'd rather be near the centre." Switzerland didn't have a sniping position in this line because of the lack of appropriate trees.

"You'll stay in this hut with me, England and Sweden," Germany answered after thinking a while.

Denmark made a vocal objection. "Then what about me? You're scorning me, aren't you?"

Germany sighed. "You go to the left hut. And no, I'm not scorning you, I'm just trying to make things work. I'll leave you in charge of the left centre."

Denmark looked dejected for having to give his position to Switzerland, but grabbed his axe and exited the hut from the little hole in the side wall, wishing everyone a good night. Sweden, who was sitting beside the hole that was made to ease their moving within the line, quickly squeezed Denmark's hand when the fellow Nordic passed by, wishing him luck.

Making himself comfortable on the solid ground after sitting in trees for the whole day, Switzerland sat down in the corner, his gun in his hands as he closed his eyes. England shifted and for a while, the light left the map in the dark. Slowly, when England felt as relaxed as he could possibly be, the light wavered back to the paper and ink.

No one said anything. Sweden looked like he was about to follow Switzerland's example and close his eyes. England kept his eyes in the map again, eyes tired but remaining steadfastly open.

Germany had to think. They had to do something more effective to avoid defeat. The time to think up their plan was now. The guards were set. The scouts were on the grounds. Their fighters were taking a well-earned rest. But the commander couldn't afford to rest. He turned back to his map.

Russia was in charge of the right hut, Denmark would take care of the left one. China had the left wing in his command: it curved deeply towards the enemy grounds on a top of a small hill. Japan was on guard in case the right wing had to be spread. Germany trusted everyone in their lines to do their best.

Unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough.

Norway would still take three more days to complete the spell. Germany only hoped their enemy didn't know about their intentions of fleeing back to their own world. If they found out, Norway would be in danger, and a bunch of hurt countries and a couple of medics in the headquarters wouldn't probably make the best defence to the magician. Estonia and Finland were the strongest, healthiest nations present, and an attack would also cause major harm to the injured.

The commander shook his head away from the worst-case scenario. It was troubling his thoughts and he couldn't concentrate. They had to take back a couple of lines if they wanted to hold long enough.

Germany firmly gazed at the map in silence. When he closed his eyes in thought, he had memorized the details in it and could bring the lines, the marks and the colours back in front of his shut eyes. His brains worked out all the lines, thought about everyone's abilities and strength. Deep within his thoughts, Germany was making up a new plan to help them win. Tonight would turn the battle better for them, or make the situation worse. Because after day one, they were losing this war.

The silence continued. Sweden had fallen asleep. A soft rain quietly washed the roof outside.

Finally, Germany opened his eyes and England looked up at him, waiting. He, too, had been thinking about their options. Though, there probably wasn't anyone who wasn't concerned and hadn't been thinking about it. Many nations had come earlier to voice their opinions.

Germany nodded and broke the hour long silence by simply saying, "Okay."

England raised his eyebrows.

Germany set his pen on the map. "It's time to think this over. I want China, Japan, Denmark, Russia and Hungary here. Oh, and Turkey too. It's time we reverse this hell."

England studied him closely for a while, before smiling slightly. "Aye, aye. Commander."

* * *

New A/N: I apologize for sending an unbeta'd chapter by accident, it's good we noticed it later, though. We both send you our apologize *bow* Hope it didn't disturb you. This is a correct version of chapter 6.

And here is the original A/N: Thank you for all the reviews again.

**Ophelion**: Thank you so much, you are doing wonders my self-confidence.

**Molly**: I'm aware of that mistake. Technically, there are cases where leaving the bullet be is dangerous as well, but yes, normally trying to remove it is more dangerous. But to more pleasant things: thank you for the compliment. That's a very nice thing to say.

**Howl's Owls**: I'm flattered. *bow* It's wonderful to know if someone likes my stories so much. I'll keep on writing as long as I have new ideas, confidence to write and enough time in my hands. And I can't leave a cliffhanger like that? I already did.

Scott: You're doing wonderful job, dear. Please take this story with me to its end.


	8. 7 The Tactical Planning Chapter

**7. The Tactical Planning Chapter**

**...in which no one wants to get in Finland's way**

Quietly, the morning came. The sunlight wavered into the forest between the clouds crowding in the sky. The rain had stopped; it had been only a short shower at night, unlike the day before. Nevertheless, it still looked it would rain later on that day. A relatively hard wind blew at the tops of the trees, but it didn't reach the undercover areas.

Albeit serene and clear, the morning was too quiet and peaceful. For a short moment, Germany panicked inwardly that the enemy might have crawled past them in the dark, before he realized it was highly unlikely. And they did see movement in their enemy lines; hiding in the trench they had left behind, their enemy showed up every now and then.

Their sixth and seventh trenches were close to each other, because they both had been too good of areas to just ignore. Now their enemy was hiding behind the protection mounds of the seventh trench, while the nations waited for them to appear while hiding in the sixth. Germany had ordered that they wouldn't be the ones to start shooting. The foreign soldiers would have to walk very near them without shooting before they'd be given a permission to start first. The reason was clear: if the enemy didn't want to fight right at the sunrise, that was more than fine with them and their schedule. No one had complained.

"Why aren't they starting?" England wondered aloud.

"Shouldn't be our problem if they take their time," Switzerland huffed and shifted in his position. He had changed his sniping rifle to an ordinary one.

"Le's hope n't," Sweden muttered from the opposite corner.

Germany grunted and frowned. "Their motive may be rather low right now. They lost quite a lot of their comrades yesterday."

"Or they're trying to be smart," Switzerland uttered indifferently. "They're waiting for us to let our guard down." He snorted slightly. "So actually just giving us more time to rest..."

"Don't underestimate them," England warned. "We can only guess what they come up with next."

Switzerland was about to answer when Italy appeared from the hole behind them. "Germany!" He started, and then squeaked when he stood too early and hit his head.

The addressed nation sighed, but didn't leave his position. "What is it, Italy?"

"A message," the Italian came closer and sat down casually beside him. "From Finland. He said that the hut will get small if many of you still get hurt."

Germany stared at Italy for a while and then smiled, ruffling the nation's hair. "I see. When you next see him, tell him that we'll see if we can find him more space."

England sighed. "Germany, in this kind of situation, you usually say "then we'd better have no one getting hurt anymore", etcetera."

Germany shook his head. "I'm not that sort of a positive person."

"That's our commander," England muttered, shaking his head and turning to spy over the enemy trench again.

"There is one thing disturbing me more than their slow awakening this morning," Germany continued. "Their weaponry. Why aren't they using tanks, heavy artillery or aircraft? They could defeat us in no time. They're using same weapons our allies gave to us. Why didn't we get anything more then? It's true that miss ally told us he was 'too proud' to use his 'full capacity', but by now he should have noticed we're not easy prey. Something in this war stinks..."

At that second, the gunfiring started again, and some bullets struck the wooden part of the wall above them, making Italy squeak again and dive to the floor.

"Gunpowder?" Switzerland asked sarcastically from Germany who tried to tell the messenger to go back to his post.

"Very," England aimed, ready to shoot, "-funny, Switzerland."

"Don't shoot, England," Germany warned, eyes silently reminding him about the plan.

"I know that," the Brit huffed back, but he didn't take his finger off the trigger, nor break his stance.

"Ya think they'll com'?" Sweden asked from Germany.

"They're idiots if they don't," the commander answered. "Or they're clever enough to notice it's a trap. Italy, get going already."

"Aye sir," the Italian backed off, disappearing quickly back into the hole.

After a while the shooting paused. None of the nations had opened fire on their half yet. Everyone was lying beneath good cover, listening to the snapping sounds of the bullets hitting the ground above and around them, waiting. When their enemy ceased the attacking for a moment, silence in the lines continued.

"They're hesitating," Germany mumbled, taking a good grip from his gun. "If our trenches are empty, shooting will do nothing for you. Now, what you will do?"

"They're too far to throw grenades," Switzerland stated, taking a little glance from the one of the little holes in the wall. "If they want to do something other than waste bullets, they'll have to get closer."

"Or change their guns into something more effective," England noted and shifted away from the eyes of their enemy.

The shooting started again. This session was longer, but Germany still didn't give the order. It was followed by a shorter pause and the next time the enemy opened fire the moving started.

"Germany," England warned. "They're coming out. I see five to ten soldiers right now. The ones in the trenches are covering them."

"More're comin' out," Sweden added from his corner.

Germany inhaled slowly. "Now we'll see..." he mumbled quietly and watched them, eyes sharp and focused on the quickly closing enemies. What was going to happen next was crucial to their plan.

"Over fifty are out," Switzerland informed loudly over the gunshots and shouts.

Then, the field the enemy was trying to breach turned the easy breakthrough into a chaos, because it was at that moment that the traps went off. The mines were the first to blow up. People who were trying to stagger away from the explosions stepped onto the stakes hiding in the hay or fell over on them because of the wires tightening between them. The ones who managed to avoid piercing themselves on the sharp pieces of wood stumbled along the wires, many ending up being shot by one of their allies, who couldn't react in time to cease the fire; it all happened so fast.

England grinned widely, watching the panic rising amongst the survivors, who tried to help the wounded or just ran away; only to become a victim of another kind of trap. "Good job, Turkey, Russia, Hungary," he complimented aloud to those who had last night risked their lives to set up those traps without anyone noticing and, from the looks of it, had done it perfectly. England could imagine the grin on the Turk's face right now, or how Hungary was cheering to herself. Russia was Russia, so he was probably smiling.

The chaos on the field had stopped the firing from the enemy line. Germany stood up. "England!" he called the other to follow his lead. "Our turn. Let's run wild!" he shouted as loud as his lungs would allow at the exact same time that he and England directed a kick at the hut door between them. The shout was a signal to everyone who could hear them. The kick that tossed the door off its hinges was the sign to those who were too far to hear them, but could still see them. And the ones who were unable to hear or see them would notice the signal by the rate that the remaining humans on the field were dropping dead.

Germany and England were using the changes that the enemy crisis on the field and the surprise of their counter-attack gave them, both standing up by the frames of the door and shooting into the flock of panicked humans. The smoke and their own troops in the way prevented the enemy that was still in the trench from shooting back effectively. China and the folk of the left wing were a good addition, attacking the enemy from the side, leaving them with two places to run: back to their own trench or down the slope on the right, where - to the malice of the few who tried - Japan was waiting for them with some members of the right wing.

The surprise was short-lived but very efficient: over fifty of their enemies were now lying dead or injured in the field between the trenches, when their own lines hadn't thinned out at all, and all had yet to put new bullets to their rifles. Germany and England had ducked back behind the stone foundation to be safer, and were now shooting back at the trenches. Some of the enemies were still trying to crawl towards them, but were apparently called back by their officers. That was the time that Germany gave the signal to Switzerland, who retreated from his position for a second to change his weapon. From the biggest hole near him, the Swiss fired a larger shell towards the sky. When it exploded about twenty metres above the ground and a short distance before the enemy trench, the morning air was quickly filled with grey smoke that floated downwards like a cloud. After three similar shots, the field and the enemy trench were filled entirely with smoke. The wind had stilled below the trees, and the make-up-fog slowly made itself comfortable in the humid air, except for the top of the cloud that dissolved at the level of the tree tops.

Switzerland's shots were a signal to China.

He rose half way up from his position behind some bushes. "Everyone! You know what to do!" he shouted around him to his companions. "Don't get killed!"

Their job was to prevent the enemy from escaping or at least make it extremely difficult. Through the smoke, the enemy wouldn't be able to spot the changes in their lines in time to counter them. Germany's plan had many different layers, but to put it simply: the easiest way to win back trenches was to make the enemy want to flee from them. And the easiest way to make them want that was to show them the full capacity of a nation on a warpath.

.*** *** ***

The day's first wounded on their side didn't come until the sun had risen far above the tree tops. It actually took so long that the current members of the back-up-group, France and Greece, we're called back to the lines and Finland was called from the headquarters to fill them in. After almost four hours of fighting, China appeared from the hole in the left wall of the central hut, supporting Austria from his armpit and holding the hand that hung over his shoulders tightly. Austria's right thigh was bleeding heavily and he couldn't put weight on his leg.

"What happened?" Germany asked, ceasing fire for a second to check on the situation.

"He had a bullet embed itself in his thigh while we moved closer to the enemy trench," China explained and helped Austria sit down. "I was the closest, so I left Turkey in lead and came to help him away."

"Shall we call the medics?" England asked during a pause that he took to change his ammo.

"Taiwan already went when we reached the left hut," China answered, and to mark his words, first Hungary and then Finland appeared from the hole in the back.

"Oh Austria, you're so silly," Hungary said as she crouched down beside the wounded man. Austria frowned at the choice of words, but to Hungary they seemed to fit the situation, so he said nothing.

"Germany," China called to bring attention back to himself. "We spotted some movement behind the enemy trenches just now. I think they are getting reinforcements."

"Men? Or weapons?" the German asked for details hurriedly.

"We're not sure, but both I think," China continued. "What do we–"

England cursed loudly and pulled back from the door. A bullet struck the floor of the building, shutting China up. "Snipers!" the Brit spat and dove under the stone foundation when another bullet came through the wall, where he had been shooting from just a moment ago.

Germany ducked as well. "How many?"

"Two," Switzerland answered from the corner immediately.

"Where?"

"Well if you'll be bait, I can possibly tell."

England huffed and rose up so that he could shoot over the edge of the foundation. After a few seconds of shooting he took cover again before the sniper could take good aim at him. He repeated this action a few times, and was shot two times; Germany shot as well, but from a higher position, and was shot three times. One of the bullets scratched England's arm and made him release a flood of curses before Switzerland told them to stop.

"I know one of their locations, and have a hunch on the other," he said sourly. "But I know I can only shoot the first one from here."

"I'll take the other one," Finland volunteered and, borrowing Switzerland's sniping rifle, he turned to the other. "It's better take them down simultaneously, so that the other won't be warned that they've been spotted."

Switzerland nodded. "Go high. I guess you're better off there."

Finland looked around him, frowning until he found a perfect spot to shoot. He handed the rifle to China in order to use both hands, and he started to climb up the wall, soon after reaching the rafter. He leaned down and took the gun from China, who did his best to hand the rifle up to that height without falling over. When the Nordic had securely obtained the rifle, he started to edge along the wood towards the front wall of the building.

"Are you okay?" England asked, raising his eyebrows at the acrobatics.

"Sure," Finland answered cheerfully.

When he reached the wall, he first had to make a hole in the wall before they could get anywhere. After some usage of a knife and the end of the rifle, the two snipers were ready to go.

"Are you sure they didn't notice you making that hole?" Hungary asked. She had just finished treating Austria's leg and was going to exit the hut with the injured man.

"Let's hope not," Switzerland answered. "But I think they have more urgent things to look after." He nodded at the outside, towards the bullet rain.

"Germany, one more time please," Finland requested from above.

Germany sighed. "If I get killed it's your fault then."

"You won't, those guys suck as snipers," Switzerland assured. "Or it's an accidental hit."

"Well, if I'll die anyway, I don't really care," Germany noted, but he rose up to be bait one more time. It took a while for the right sniper to try to shoot him. From the angle the bullet hit the floor and its distance from the door, Finland calculated the highly likely direction, using Switzerland's information as a base.

"I have him," Finland reported looking through the rifle aim.

"Can you get him?" Switzerland asked and took his own stance and aim.

"Anytime."

It was over quickly.

Finland climbed down from the rafter with the help of China. "China, what are you still doing here?" he asked the left wing commander. Hungary had already taken Austria away.

"I'm waiting for orders," the Asian answered, making Germany glance up at him, eyes clearly saying 'crap, I forgot'.

Germany opened his mouth, but anything he was going to say disappeared under Switzerland's shriek.

"Watch out!"

A second later, the front wall of hut exploded from the left corner, throwing hundreds of shards of wood around the room. The foundation collapsed partially as well and the building itself let out warning creaks from the ceiling. Sweden, who was positioned in the left corner, flew backwards from the shockwave and slumped unmoving on the floor, the shards raining down over him.

"Sweden!" England shouted as soon as he found his voice.

"Shit!" Germany raged and, dusting the few shards on him from his clothes, glanced out of the hut. "Mortars! There wasn't any before. China! Go back to your wing! Prevent any reinforcements from coming to the enemy lines! Reckoning from the distance, they should be behind the trenches, so send someone to find them!"

"Yes sir!" China answered and disappeared through the hole in a second. Finland had dragged Sweden to better shelter and Switzerland had charged from the other side of the hut to help him.

"Switzerland!" Germany called.

"What?"

"The grenades. Snipe them down before they land!"

Switzerland actually smiled. "An interesting order," he answered and, without saying any more, he grabbed the sniping rifle from the floor and advanced to the door to use it, shoving England out of the way.

Germany was already giving more orders. "Finland. Take Sweden to a safe place. I can see even from here he's still alive. Go– are you listening?" he ended confusedly, when the Nordic didn't show any proof that he was listening.

"Switzerland, do you still have those smoke things?" the Finn asked instead.

The sniper didn't look at him when he answered. "A few."

"Good." Finland moved swiftly to stand by Germany beside the wall, and he took up his rifle. "Germany. I have two questions."

"What are you up to?" Germany tried to figure out what expression the Nordic was wearing.

"How many men are there in the enemy trench?"

"We can't be sure, of course, but I believe the number is near fifty," England answered, clearly as bewildered as Germany.

"Then the second question." Finland shifted, sitting on his legs. "Can you take care of Sve?"

"What do you think you're going to do?" Germany raged, but Finland escaped the question by returning to Sweden, taking his rifle and ammo with him as well. With these two rifles, he was about to exit the hut from the left back corner, when he stopped.

"Switzerland. Please," he asked simply from the sniper, who this time turned to look at him and nodded a yes.

"Finland!" Germany stopped him one more time. "I know Sweden is your friend, but I _forbid_ you from doing anything stupid!"

The Nordic turned back to look at him and Germany quieted down. He saw now that those determined, clear eyes staring back at him were the ones of a person who was more than prepared to do something stupid to get what he wanted.

"Don't worry," Finland answered to his outburst. "I know exactly what I'm doing."

"You're saying it's not stupid?"

"That I don't guarantee, but that doesn't change anything."

With that, he disappeared through the hole, leaving Germany behind. Said blonde hit his fist against the wall, frustrated. After a moment, he closed his eyes, thinking furiously. England followed his reactions, wondering if he was ordered to go to stop the Nordic.

Germany exhaled and inhaled slowly before he seemed to calm down. He opened his eyes. "England. Take care of Sweden. It seems we have a change in plans."

"You're not going to stop him?" England asked, surprised.

Germany shook his head, sighing. "I can't."


	9. 8 The Breath Taking Chapter

**8. The Breath Taking Chapter**

**...in which a chance for a break appears**

Denmark appeared in the doorway to the central hut a moment after the Finn had left. "What on Earth is happening here? What did you do to make Finland look like that?" he asked Germany, before even coming inside. Germany just pointed at England and Sweden, but not before Denmark had noticed them himself. "Oh fuck... Sve, what ye have done..."

In the left wing, China was giving orders to the nations nearby so that they could hunt down the grenade launcher, when he heard rustling behind him. After spinning around in a brief moment of fear with regards to being ambushed, he was suddenly face-to-face with Finland. From the looks of the Nordic, he concluded the man hadn't come by to pick up someone injured.

"China, I want to ask you a favour," Finland started, when he came close enough they could hear each other without any problems. "I want you guys to back me up."

"What are you going to do?" the Asian asked confused.

"Raid that trench," Finland answered simply, already continuing on his way towards the enemy line. "I want you to keep them distracted until I reach their line."

"Do you have Germany's approval for this?" China frowned.

"Yes. Since he isn't coming after me."

When Finland disappeared to continue his own mission, China made his way over to Turkey to take back his command. After hearing what Finland had on his mind, the Turk was immediately ready to go help him: actually, he found the sound of the plan very intriguing. Taking Turkey and Belarus with him, China moved closer to the trapped field and prepared to cover the Nordic, leaving Greece and Egypt to cover them in turn. As soon as they were ready, China gave everyone an order to give it their best shot.

"They're coming from the right!" someone in the trench shouted and the soldiers turned their attention to the hill that some of them had been protecting.

"Don't let them come near!" the captain ordered. "Kill them!"

"Captain! From the left too!"

The officer grimaced. "They're trying to push us back. Stay tough! The odds are on our side! All you have to do is stay in your positions and keep your calm!"

That was the moment Switzerland decided it was his turn to take action, and this decision was followed by the sound of his launcher. A white and grey screen of smoke exploded over the enemy trench once more, immediately worsening the visibility of the area, and only a moment later another bomb exploded near the trench. More heavy smoke floated along the ground around them, making the captain curse vehemently.

The third and the last of Switzerland's shells exploded, and the most of the trench was quickly covered in the white mass, sheltering the murderous Finland who, at that moment, dropped himself into the trench.

"Wha–" one of the soldiers in front of him managed to yelp, before all three of them fell in the rain of bullets, slumping unmoving to the bottom of the ditch. One of them only managed to croak once before falling silent.

"What's wrong?" A lieutenant nearby to them asked loudly, and he came into sight around a young, now shattered tree that marked a gentle turn. He was followed by two of his soldiers. Despite the thick, fog-like smoke, he could clearly see three corpses lying in the dirt of the trench that they had claimed yesterday from their enemies. "Shit!" The officer swore and turned to look around him. "Where did they shoot from?" Unfortunately for him, he did what humans usually did in uncertainty and forgot to search above his own eye level. If he had lifted his gaze up to the tree behind the trench, he could have seen the cause of his death before it claimed him.

Finland killed one more soldier that was coming along the trench to find out what was going on before he jumped back to the bottom of their old seventh line. He was quick in his movement, for he knew he wouldn't have a second chance with any of the opponents he came across. In the case his own gun would run empty, he had Sweden's hanging on his back, ready to be used. He would need it soon enough.

In comparison to Finland, who began his job the moment the smoke spread, Germany, China and Japan all commanded a swift halt when it did. They didn't want to end up accidentally shooting Finland by randomly aiming amidst the white wall. The sounds of guns in the nations' lines ceased one-by-one, but in the enemy trench there seemed to be no hope for a break. Germany started cursing his decision to let the Finn go. He had sent a message to Japan to first charge and then stop when the smoke appeared, but he was already wondering if that had been a good idea either: the steep hillside on their right had been left unprotected.

Behind him, Sweden regained consciousness. The bomb hadn't exploded near enough to do him more harm than dozens of painful scratches from the shards of the wall. There to help the Nordic was Italy, who was also waiting for a new message to pass on. England had returned to his post. Sweden's coughing and grunting turned the commander's attention away from the enemy lines that were now out of their sight anyways.

"Sweden? Is he awake, Italy?" Germany asked and, after an affirmative answer, he turned to Switzerland, nodding at him to go. "Go help them."

Switzerland responded with a slight nod and slipped from his position towards the back of the hut. Apparently the smoke and the sudden charge had flustered the enemy, because only a few grenades had reached their lines even after their sniper retreated from his post. Germany turned back to face the smoke wall, listening to the sounds from the trench far away. He inhaled slowly before turning to his right hand.

"England. We'll continue the charge."

The Englishman looked purely surprised. "Are you sure? In that smoke we might hit Finland."

"We're not going to open fire," Germany explained and shifted his gun to point the barrel at the ceiling. "The shooting in this direction is getting scanty. Because of the smoke, they can't shoot us effectively either. We'll crawl up to close range and get ready for hand-to-hand combat. Italy," he called over his shoulder. "Did you hear? Search for Sealand and send him to the right wing, while you go to the left and pass the situation plan onto Japan and China." The Italian exited the hut and Germany turned back, changing his position, ready to leave any time. "Switzerland, take Sweden to the medics and follow us afterwards." Switzerland didn't look happy, but he still obeyed.

"There could still be traps in the field," England noted, while preparing to leave. "And if Finland fails and they start shooting us again, we're in the middle of a trapped field. This is dangerous, Germany."

"Either way, right now we're going to win back that trench," Germany answered without a second thought. "We won't have a better chance. And besides..." He smiled. "Just sitting back here and letting Finland do all the work isn't really my trade. I'll trust everyone to take care of themselves."

England chuckled and set his hand on the door frame. "Sounds like our commander. After you."

Germany jumped out of the door and quickly ducked between the hay on the ground. England slipped after him and, after exchanging a polite nod, they started crawling towards the muddy and bloodstained field, where dozens of unmoving, slaughtered bodies of soldiers laid waiting to be retrieved. Soon after, Germany could hear how Denmark followed them with his own group, and then Russia appeared within his peripheral vision.

Soon they reached the traps and their advance slowed when everyone checked their surroundings to ensure they wouldn't detonate a remaining bomb. The gunfiring from the trench ahead of them was still fierce.

"Just wait Finland," the commander mumbled and crawled past two corpses, holding his breath in order to not inhale too much air around him: it smelt disgusting enough to make him want to just stand up and run the remaining distance. Suddenly he stopped, turning his head quickly to the hand holding his wrist, and then to the soldier laying on his back beside him. For a moment that seemed to last longer than it actually did, they shared a steady gaze straight from one's eyes into the other's. With one glance, Germany could tell there was no hope for the youngster, whose stomach and part of his chest was covered in fresh, still-running blood. The dying man didn't have any strength left to say anything, and a string of blood was running down his jaw while he just stared at his enemy. Germany's features hardened slightly and he raised his gun to give the soldier his long-awaited rest.

After shooting, Germany suddenly felt weird. Something around him was missing. It was too silent.

"Germany!" England called from his left a little ahead of him, hints of panic in his voice. "It stopped."

The trench ahead of them had fallen quiet, only a few sounds of footsteps remained. The smoke had started to clear slightly, but it still effectively hid the line from them. All of the nations had stopped in their tracks, waiting for whatever would happen next. Would they be trapped on the field, ambushed into a bullet rain by their enemy? Had their charge noticed? Where was Finland? Had the enemy killed him and was just taking a breather before they continued? Or had...

Before Germany could picture other possibilities in his mind, a figure moving with obvious uncertainty in his steps appeared through the smoke. The darker stains in his hair and on his face revealed a head injury.

Upon recognizing the being, Denmark gawked. "Fin?"

"Idiot!" England yelped, before hissing and rising up a little higher off the ground. "Stay down! Finland!"

Germany cursed and scrambled up, dashing to the Finn as fast as he possibly could while checking his footsteps amidst the remaining traps. However, most had gone off already, being that close to the enemy trench. He reached the Nordic and grabbed him into his arms, ducking down against the ground hurriedly. The others followed his dash, not wanting to leave the two alone, and the nations around him disappeared into Switzerland's smoke. England, Denmark and Russia came one-by-one and skidded to a halt beside Germany and Finland.

"Finland?" Germany called out and looked at the Nordic under him, lifting him up to see him better. The Finn's eyes were half open and the left side of his head was covered in fresh blood that made his blond hair sticky: a bullet had scratched the side of his head, similarly to Korea, but higher. He had only one of his guns with him and it was lying beside him, dropped when Germany had tackled him. Germany grimaced at his injury. "Fool. Look what you've got."

Finland moved his gaze slowly to his commander and smiled. "I'm sorry. Ten... Got away."

Germany gaped at the medic, disbelief painting his face. He truly didn't hear any gunshots around him, even when the nations had reached the enemy trench.

England took to a more comfortable position, relaxing slightly and sighing. "Tell me," he asked Denmark, who looked relieved after seeing Finland still alive. "Why do we keep this guy a medic again?"

Denmark sent him a half-hearted glare. "Do I have to remind ye, my dear boy, that it was yer bloody idea?"

"Gather everyone together," Germany commanded, stopping the rising argument."We're not letting this chance Finland gave us slip past."

"Then I'll take Finland," Hungary offered, cautiously coming closer.

"What about Austria?" England asked, making a mention of what caused the fast return of the woman.

"Latvia took him back. Sweden is with Liechtenstein."

"Hungary," Germany said when the Hungarian and himself began checking Finland's wound. "Hand your over position to someone more tired and come to the front. I'll use every chance we have to win back trenches. It's time you grab the gun for real."

Hungary smiled widely. "Oh, how I've waited to hear that."

.*** *** ***

The one replacing Hungary for the rest of the day was finally Liechtenstein, because no one in the front was ready to leave their position. A moment later, in addition to Hungary, they got reinforcements from Canada, who was returning to the front despite his injured arm, saying it was nothing that serious. Italy left to head back to the headquarters, helping the tottering Finland along as well, and the rest of the nations readied themselves to charge after the retreating enemy. The left wing and some others had already taken their leave and were chasing the escapees in an attack led by China.

When the others followed, as quickly as they got ready for an attack, they found Egypt. He was waiting for Germany to come, standing beside an abandoned mortar, which their opponents had left behind in order to escape faster.

"What a waste," Switzerland huffed, sounding disappointed in their enemies. "Leaving good weapons behind to save their own asses. They're not real soldiers."

"Or they have so many of them that it doesn't make much of a difference if they're missing one," Russia suggested.

"Are you speaking out of experience, or is that a guess?"

"It's broken, they must have taken off some of the most important parts," Germany said, investigating the mortar more closely. "Der 5cm leichter Granatenwerfer 36, in short 5 cm leGrW 36. Designed 1934, in service 1936-45. It was seen as too complex for its intended role as it fired bombs that were too light to inflict enough damage on the enemy, and had too short a range that was only effective from 50 to about 500 meters. The production was terminated in 1942," he lectured with dull voice, standing up and turning to leave. "Used in Nazi Germany. It's useless to us now and we're in a hurry. Leave it there."

.*** *** ***

They didn't meet much resistance later that day: after three hours of fighting after Finland's victorious stunt, the enemy started retreating away from the area. The nations found their behavior strange: abandoning already claimed trenches wasn't in anyone's inner war tactic instructions. Their guesses of the enemy plotting something bigger grew more and more anxious when no reason was found to explain their foe's odd behavior. Germany ordered the charge to stop. Some of the nations were sent back to the hut that was working as their headquarters, to ensure their base wouldn't end up being slaughtered without them knowing it.

The tenth line of their formation was the last that they claimed back, although the enemy seemed to retreat even further away. There they sat, waiting and wondering what their enemy might come up with next. Raiding one trench couldn't possibly scare away a whole army of trained soldiers (even Finland wasn't that scary, even if he tried to be) and their charge to win back already lost areas couldn't have been an utter surprise either. Their anxiety in the sudden awkward silence and for the useless reports from the few who were sent to spy were relieved later in the afternoon, when Italy ran to meet with Germany, telling him that their woman ally had appeared in their home hut with news. Leaving people to guard the trenches, Germany, England, Russia, Japan, Turkey and France started a journey back to meet up with the woman.

Upon returning, they were cheerfully greeted by not only their ally, but also Korea and America, who were sitting on the benches that had been carried outside to make the hut more spacious.

England frowned at the joyful greeting he received from the American. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

"I've been there for the whole day, man," America resisted. "And I'm not _ill, _just a bit injured, so it's okay to get some fresh air, right?"

"'A bit'…" England repeated dryly.

"America has been very restless today," Seychelles explained, coming out of the main door of the hut. "We're having hard time inventing something to do for him."

"I wish we'd have such a problem," France sighed melodramatically.

"No kidding, you guys look awful," their ally noted, eyeing the dirty clothes of the nations. "Well, I came to tell you something you might appreciate, so sit back and relax for a while, okay?"

"What is happening?" Germany asked, sitting down on the log beside the benches. "Our enemy retreated all of the sudden."

"No need to thank me," the woman grinned. "Okay, the thing is that we voiced some formal protest against his actions on a partly demilitarized area. Politics, see?"

"This place is demilitarized?" Japan confirmed, surprised.

"Well kinda. I said partly, okay?" She twirled a piece of her long hair, wondering how she should explain. "We have a treaty that says that none of us will raise weapons against _each other _in here."

"I see. So with us he can make an exception." Germany nodded. "So he pulled his troops out and returned to his territory because you sent a formal objection?"

"Don't get it wrong. That won't hold him long, since the treaty really doesn't concern you," she warned. "We just gave him a bit of paper work, okay. He'll come back soon enough."

"How long do we have for this ceasefire time?"

"I'd guess you can be somewhat peaceful tomorrow, but I won't guarantee that. Today for sure."

Germany seemed very pleased. "Would it be too much to ask if I wanted you to send us more weapons? We're running out of hand grenades. More ammo would be nice too."

Their ally smiled. "May-be," she said, stretching before she smiled widely. "I could _possibly_ ask for something in return. Like… Some newer technological information."

"No problem," Japan answered immediately and grabbed the person next to him by the nape of his neck before handing him to their ally. "Korea. We'll leave it to you."

Korea's surprised expression changed in an enthusiastic one when he registered what he was needed for: he could talk about his greatest inventions and explain everything about them almost from scratch. When 'Mrs.' Ally overcame her own surprise and accepted the offer, Korea dragged one of her disciples to a short distance away and began his lecture.

Germany turned back to their ally. "There has been one thing bothering me, and I'd hoped you could enlighten us. Why doesn't our enemy use any heavier weaponry, and why have you not supplied us with any? This actually seems a bit ridiculous to me."

At this, the woman hesitated for moment before answering. Or actually, not answering. "There is a reason for that, but you don't have to worry about it, okay? It's one of our own problems."

"I don't mind whether or not we know as long as we can be sure he doesn't use any of it out of the blue."

"He won't. Or if he dares, we'll come in to stop him for you. It's a long story and you really don't have to bother with it, okay?" Their female ally promised. "You have enough problems already. Speaking of problems, how is your plan to return to your home proceeding?"

"We don't know," Seychelles answered. "Norway won't come out of his room. Estonia appears once in a while to get them something or check the news, but he can't really tell us anything."

"If he'll get things done on time, I don't care," England sighed. "Germany, we have a break for at least a day. What should we do?"

Germany grunted in thought. "Let's take a good rest tonight. Everyone really deserves it. Someone should go send word to the tenth line that they can relax a bit for now. Good sleep and a bit of food would also be nice."

"You _especially_ should rest, poor little commander," Russia purred, delighted for a break. "You didn't sleep last night, da?"

Germany shook his head. "That can wait until the night. There is still some work I need to do first. And besides, I did sleep last night, for a couple of hours."

"Because I ordered you to," England noted right afterwards, and Germany gave him a wry look before continuing.

"Firstly, I remember Italy mentioning something about Finland, who ran out of space," he started, and England nodded when he remembered the situation. "I think we can kill two birds with one stone. America." Germany glanced at the man opposite him. "Can you walk without problems?"

"Sure!" the American replied brightly. "What do I do?"

"Come with us," Germany rose up from his seated position. "Let's go investigate this area one more time and try to find a good storage place for our poor little back-up group."

* * *

A/N: I didn't leave you in a cliffhanger! \o/ Happy now? (Quite a few has cursed some of them :/)

**Howl's Owls**: Don't worry, you're not the only one XD I'm writing this in the first place after all. We're all evil~...

**Ophelion**: I'm glad you liked it. I don't think I've taken so much into consideration as you think I have. I usually go with: "hey, this would look good" and just try to keep it a bit clever. Of course, I have to do some research at the times, like with the mortar in this chapter. The whole thing is mapped and planned in my head only =) I have some notes though, like to remember where which nation is in which chapter, so I know who can be present in a scene and so on. Why are you so sure I have a trump card somewhere? XD

Thank you for everyone else as well. I'll keep up the work as long as there's at least someone to support me.

Scott, dear friend, you're irreplaceable.


	10. 9 The Panicking Chapter

**9. The Panicking Chapter**

**…****in which England doesn't enjoy the silence**

Sealand was sent running to the tenth line to tell everyone about the acquired break. Everyone – especially their medics – met the news with a sort of relief that eased everyone's burden. Some of the injured also noted that their chances of getting back to fight rose when everyone had more time to take care of them. Especially Lithuania, Sweden and Romano; they all had nearly secured chances of being able to return to the front, even though the latter wasn't so inspired. Then again, they could already tell that Hong Kong, Netherlands and Austria wouldn't heal enough to fight anymore. Iceland and Spain were both a completely different case; no one knew would they wake up at all, let alone be able to fight. Belgium had problems moving her right arm, and Finland had warned her earlier that if she even tried to crawl on the ground, the wounds would probably open again. America was more than ready to go, but no one agreed since he couldn't even lift anything that was too heavy properly.

"I see," Norway nodded upon hearing the news. He had come out of the room for the first time during the day. "Good," he glanced at the unconscious Finland and the injured Swede beside him before letting his gaze wander around all the injured present. "I'll do my best."

"Would it be possible for us to lend Estonia to the fighting cause and leave someone else with you? As in, someone with only mild injuries?" Germany asked, he too glancing around to point out someone appropriate.

But Norway shook his head. "Tha' would be problematic. Estonia knows what we're doing and I wouldn't enjoy explaining it anew."

"I agree," Estonia noted. "Not that I doubt anyone's abilities or don't want to help you to fight, but I genuinely think I can help you better if I'm here."

"Makes sense." France patted Estonia's shoulder. "These two here means less time there for us, Germany. Let them have their way."

The German nodded and agreed with the point. Then, he decided it was time to go and search out a new grocery store for their food supplies. The home hut was really getting cramped, after all. Out of all four rooms, one room was for Norway and Estonia, the one beside it for the seriously injured and the last smaller room for food, ammo and other such required items. This meant that the largest room was filled with the injured and the medics. It was neither comfortable, ergonomic nor healthy. The expedition leaving consisted Germany, England, France, Japan, Turkey and of course the over-excited American, who finally got something to do. Hungary, who arrived back from the trenches together with Sealand and Denmark, announced later that she would also come, representing the back-up group.

"So you won't do anything stupid," she added after her announcement.

When they were planning on leaving, their ally came to them, telling them that she would leave for her country, so they wouldn't be meeting for a while. Before that, she had to call back her assistant, who seemed to be quite shocked and dazed after discussing things with Korea, but he was able to walk so it was evidently nothing serious. At least Korea was happy, telling them to come chat with him again anytime. He was one of the nations that would definitely make it back to the frontline before the end, at least according to the speed that he dashed from one place to another.

An hour or so after Germany had first announced that they should go, they finally took their leave. Their advance was slower than it would have normally been because of America, who they tried not to tire too much, but it didn't really matter since they'd all been in a hurry for the past few days; it did them good to relax for a while.

"You should have seen Belgium's face when she saw Netherlands," America explained eagerly, sharing some of his information from the other side of the war. "I swear her jaw nearly dropped to the floor. And she even laughed a little when she came to help him inside. The poor guy really didn't appreciate it. He still can't sit by the way. He tried once though and then jumped up so quickly they had to patch the wound up again afterwards," America snickered.

England sighed. "That's not actually a laughing matter, you know."

"Oh come on. Seriously dude, you've gotta laugh at _something _when it's already so moody." America nudged the older nation. "Chill out for a moment when you still have a chance."

England huffed, but relaxed, massaging the area America had been poking. "Germany, what exactly are we looking for?" he asked from the back of the line.

"Anything goes," the German answered, "as long as it's not too far away and is well sheltered. There should be other huts around here as well, right?" He took a map from his back, scanning it briefly. "A few, yes. We'll check them first."

The first one of their targets had nothing special in it; it was almost like the one they currently used, only it was a bit smaller. The issue was that it wasn't just a 'bit' dirtier, and one of the windows was broken. It looked like some animals had used it as their nest. Germany suggested that they look up the other options as well before making a hasty decision. Turkey noted that he really didn't think their food would last so long in that hut unguarded.

"Do we have enough people to have someone guard this place?" he asked slightly sarcastically after pointing that out.

"I don't think so," Germany admitted, and shook his head. "You've got a point. We can't really afford to lose our supplies."

"So we must be sure the place is safe," England summarized. "This place certainly isn't. We can, of course, transfer only ammo and guns and keep the food closer."

Hungary nodded. "That'd be easier, and the medicine we must keep at Home anyway."

"Home?" Germany raised his eyebrows.

"That's what the permanent medics started calling our little hut," Hungary explained, smiling. "Liechtenstein came up with it. It probably feels comfortable to tell the injured that they're Home."

"Sounds like Liechtenstein." Germany smiled back. "Shall we continue?"

The second hut they came across was very close by, but it was partially collapsed, and thus they departed for the next one almost immediately. They were starting to get too far from the Home by that point, and Germany decided that they would change direction towards the north-west after reaching the next blackened spot on the map. America was doing well thus far, but it seemed as though he'd had problems being quiet around the ill people, so now he was taking it all back. He had found a talkative soul mate in Turkey; together they managed to make England blow a fuse once already. It wasn't a bad blow-up, but it still happened. France was also happy to join the conversation after he saw how frustrated England grew when the talk started running along forbidden trails, much to Hungary's delight. Germany refused to join the conversation and, unlike England, he succeeded. Even Japan joined the conversation. Once. After that, no one asked him again.

"There it is," Germany stopped France's speech suddenly. "But it seems this one's more like a shed or hay storage."

"Shall we take a look?" England managed to escape the others and join their commander at the front. "It looks rather spacious."

"Let's." America came beside them. "There might even be a buried treasure in there."

"In your dreams," England scoffed.

"Well, there is one for sure if we don't take a look, so come on," America answered, already going towards the hut.

The others followed, sighing. How typical of America. Upon coming closer, they noticed that the shed had only one big room with old and partially decayed walls and no door. It indeed had been some kind of storage house in its good old days. Right now, it looked like the second floor would collapse if someone sneezed.

"Perfectly _not_ what we need." Germany didn't bother to go further in, pulling the map out again while pushing Turkey back behind him. "The next one shouldn't be far if we continue towards the north for a while. There's some kind of a stream on a way… I wonder if it's big enough to cause us to have some travel problems. Hungary, come here for a sec!" he called out.

Not listening to him, America stood in the centre of the high storage room, glancing from one corner to another. "This is like a place some unfortunate travellers use as a shelter in a sudden storm! Don't you agree, England?"

England hummed a dull response, knocking the rotten wall absentmindedly.

"I mean," America continued. "I'm sure the roof leaks when it rains… A strong wind will make the whole building shake, and this thing looks like it'll be perfect for a ghost story anyway."

"You two! We're leaving!" Germany called from outside.

"Coming!" America shouted back and went to the door. "You're coming or not?"

"Yeah, I'll be there in a minute," England answered, inspecting some of the old stuff leaning against the wall.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to find out what kind of storage place this was, and wondering if there's something useful here," the Englishman told him, lifting up a pitchfork and swinging like it was a weapon. "What do you think?"

America laughed. "I'll ask Germany if he needs a pitchfork in his protection plans." He exited the hut. "Germany! England found you a new weapon!"

Inside the hut, England grunted at his choice of words and proceeded to investigate the pile of boards in the corner.

"What?" Germany raised his gaze from the map, looking suspicious of what to expect.

"A pitchfork. I'm sure there's a rake or two as well, if you want," America grinned.

England didn't hear this part of the conversation anymore. After moving a few boards to look what was below and behind them he stumbled backwards, absolute terror written in his face, raising his hands to cover himself. One reached his eye level, the other one only his chest, and his mouth opened to shout a warning - but his voice was drowned out by a louder noise before he could form any words whatsoever.

Outside the hut, before Germany could sigh and reject America's offer, the whole expedition stumbled to take cover from what had just occurred. Everyone except America, who stood paralyzed when the shed exploded behind him, throwing shredded boards outwards. The shockwave ruffled his hair, and the sound of an explosion filled everyone's ears for a moment. It wasn't a big explosion; it only had enough power to make the whole storage house collapse down into a pile of wood. The expedition further away wasn't in a real danger, and only America had gotten a scratch from a piece of wood on his head.

But America couldn't have cared less about the warm blood staining in the back of his head. His eyes were wide as he turned slowly around to look at the still collapsing building. He watched it until it had completely been destroyed. Among the demolished walls and roof, a few weak fires tried to break out, not succeeding in catching on the rotten wood: it was still a bit wet from the hard rain a few days ago. America stared in horror for a second, before screaming over the last echoes of the explosion: "England!"

"Merde!" France cursed, slipping back to his own language for a moment, and stumbled up from the moss. He ran to the ruins, America joining him as soon as he got his legs moving.

"France! America!" Germany tried to stop them. "It could be dangerous, you–!" he cut his sentence short when Japan rose up beside him and sprinted after the two. "Shit!" he swore and hopped up. "Turkey!" he roared behind him to the man who had stood up only moments before. "Run back to headquarters! Tell everyone what happened and bring us help!"

The masked man didn't need to be told twice: he had started running even before Germany had finished his sentence. At the piles of destroyed wooden boards, France, America, Japan and Hungary were frantically searching for the missing member of their little group.

"England!" America shouted, turning his head around in vain. "Answer me! England!"

France climbed up onto a pile of boards, hands moving any pieces of wood he could out of the way, his eyes searching rapidly for any sign of the Englishman. "Merde," he swore again, inhaling deeply, trying to keep his calm. "What on Earth was that?"

"We'll think about that later, just search!" Germany waved Japan to join everyone in digging and moving the boards. "We have to find him."

"Fuck!" America hit his fist on a slightly burnt pile of wood. "_Fuck!_"

_It was silent and dark. England laid on his back, staring into the darkness above him, knowing the same darkness loomed on his both sides, behind his head and also below his body. He couldn't turn his head or eyes, nor move anything else: he could just lay on his back on seemingly nothing at all. There was no feeling, no smell and only silence. He couldn't think clearly._

_What had happened?_

_He tried to remember. The pitchfork. A mouse running away as he reached the corner. The sound of wood hitting itself when he moved them. The thing hidden behind the pile of boards. That was it. The bomb had exploded right in front of him._

_Was he okay?_

_He didn't feel any pain. His limbs were too heavy for him to move them. Or, he thought, they were the same as before and he just didn't have the strength to._

_Where was he?_

_The silence was heavy around him. England tried to gather his strength to sit up, or even just move his hand, but the silence made him choke on the darkness around him. It felt awful, but there was no real pain. And he still couldn't move._

_Why? _

_He tried to bend his fingers, the muscles still refusing to co-operate. If he had been able to, he probably would have clenched his teeth in frustration, but the darkness was too obsessive and the muscles in his head refused to move as well. Forcefully, he tried to make his body listen to his commands, but the answer he got was silence and a slowly deepening darkness._

"Still nothing?" Germany asked everyone, looking around from one seeker to another. "How hard is it to find one man?"

Hungary threw a piece of wood angrily over her shoulder and bent down to look between the boards that were too heavy for her to move. Germany huffed and followed her example, advancing a bit forwards. On the other side of the pile where he couldn't see, he heard America still cursing.

"HERE!" France screamed suddenly, catching everyone's attention. He was kneeling on a stronger, unbroken board, and he'd pushed aside some others. His panicking gaze was focused on something below him. Just in sight underneath the rubble and showing between the boards was a frail, unmoving hand. France reached towards it desperately. "England…"

_Why wouldn't it move? England asked himself over and over again. The darkness was choking him. Was he even breathing? He didn't know. He needed to feel something. He needed something, anything to just escape the silence. He–_

France's fingers finally reached the hand and wrapped around it desperately, everyone gathering around him, anxiously waiting for any sign of life. "England? England!" He called out, so terrified that his voice didn't shake; it rang with fear, and only fear.

_Suddenly it changed. His right hand was warm again. England imagined how warming light spread around his fingers and palm, pushing the darkness away. First only the hand, then it reached up his arm to his elbow. He still wasn't able to move, but the darkness was beginning to go away._

"France, don't let go of him," Germany ordered and gestured for Hungary to help him with a bigger rafter.

"America, you're standing on his legs," France warned when he slowly started seeing more of the Englishman below the destroyed building. The American moved quickly, cursing his injured shoulder, because of which he couldn't help move anything but the small pieces of rubble. It was already throbbing with pure discomfort. France reached deeper into the hole as soon as there was more space.

_The darkness slowly lost its effect. The sounds still didn't appear, and his muscles didn't listen to him, but at least the heavy, intimidating blackness was backing off. England felt almost relaxed. The warm light reached his chest._

Germany pulled the final large board away.

France's eyes grew wide. Japan gasped behind him upon seeing the same.

"Oh my God…"

_Suddenly it was over. That light, like a false start to make him believe otherwise, was all over him now, and at the same time, his physical feeling returned. He felt the blood running down his face, chest and legs. His left hand and left eye felt like they were on fire. The darkness wasn't because he was somewhere with no light: he just couldn't see. _

_England wanted to cry out loud, scream out his pain. Nothing came. He was still stuck in silence. No muscles moved. He still felt the warmth: the warmth of the blood running down his skin. He could taste it on his tongue. The pain was excruciating, tearing apart the last parts of his sanity. _

'_No!' He screamed silently, panicking all alone in the darkness. 'Don't leave me here! Don't leave me!'_

The last pieces of wood were tossed away and Germany and France pulled the bleeding England out from the remaining rubble. They quickly carried him away from the destroyed storage hut. When the two Europeans set the injured male down, America shoved the German out of his way and grabbed England. He cradled the Brit in his arms protectively, but France had never let go of the hand he had been holding from the beginning.

England was covered in fresh, still running blood. It was flowing from the left side of his face, where the skin was almost thoroughly torn off or burnt. Both of his arms and his chest were in a similar state, and his right thigh was bleeding dangerously. Germany hurriedly pressed his jacket against the wound, while Japan reached forward beside France, trying to do the same to the wounds on England's chest.

France gripped England's hand tighter and quietly set his free hand on the side of his friend's bleeding face. "England… Hang in there."

"Turkey will come back soon," Germany promised, grimacing. "He'll come back and bring you help."

America held the limp Englishman steady in his arms and his head lowered, teeth clenching in frustration and fear. He opened his mouth as if he were trying to say something, but he didn't manage to utter a word.

Hungary dropped to her knees onto the ground behind Germany and covered her eyes, shoulders drooped down along with her head. "Shit," she whispered behind her hands.

* * *

A/N: This might be the most dramatic piece of text I've ever done. It really was hard to explain what I meant. And I'm announcing now that we're pretty soon going to have a short break. Now, I hope this cliffhanger is okay. Next some notes:

_merde_ = (approximately) shit. French.

"...slipping back to his own language..." = In my mind the nations speak some kind of a "common language" or something along those words so they understand each other, because it wouldn't make sense that they all can speak same level English etc. without any problems. They definitely would have had some in history if not now.

**cat'akai**: How can you have a nosebleed for someone being badass? And "refreshing" is certainly a new word to describe this story.

**ScoutingForGuys**: So is "unique". (look above)

**Sacchan-desuu**: Of course I dare XD That's kind of my job as a writer: doesn't it make things more interesting? Thank you for the compliment, and you made a wonderful review. But I fail to see, why am _I _cool.

Thank you for all your support again. I'll keep on writing.

Scott, you've been out of contact for a while, I hope you're okay. Please write when you have time again.


	11. 10 The Waiting Chapter

This author is so sorry for disappearing like this, and in such a bad cliffhanger. I swear it wasn't my intent: my beta reader disappeared and as I don't like the idea of changing beta reader in the middle of the story, I waited for her. She didn't return. But now I have a new beta and I'm planning on finishing this story this time. Please still read me.

* * *

**10. The Waiting Chapter**

…**in which concerned thoughts spread**

The first one coming back wasn't Turkey, but surprisingly Denmark. They could hear him well before he was sighted running out of the forest. Just a few steps behind him came Turkey, who was carrying a stretcher on his shoulder, and then a moment later came Liechtenstein and Canada. By the time the two latter came, Denmark and Turkey had already reached the waiting expedition and the still dangerously bleeding Brit.

"Oh my fucking God," Denmark stated slowly and clearly, as he thought he should say at least something, although being almost speechless, and stared at the Englishman upon coming closer.

"Could you save that for later?" Germany said angrily while making way for Liechtenstein, yet still not letting go of his tight clamp over England's thigh. Their first aid supplies hadn't been nearly enough to cover the damage. "Or just be quiet?"

"Let's hurry back immediately when I'm done," Liechtenstein said, with a slightly tensed voice as she started taking out the right supplies.

Canada came closer as well and Germany ordered France to make way and America to stop hugging England so that Liechtenstein could do her job probably.

"What happened?" Canada asked worriedly while handing Liechtenstein some water. Though he had asked the same from Turkey earlier, he still hadn't got a satisfying answer.

France shook his head apologetically. "We wish we knew."

.*** *** ***

When England was brought to the headquarters, people were already waiting for their arrival. To their surprise the one to take charge of the injured when they arrived was Finland.

"Carry him in," Finland instructed, turning around to return inside and show the place to put the Brit down. "I've emptied the hut as much as possible and no one is to come inside unless I give permission."

"Are you okay? Wouldn't someone with no injury be more sufficient for this?" Turkey asked, hesitating and glancing at the bandages circling amongst Finland's hair. "Your head–"

"Shut up and bring him in," Finland said with a wan voice and disappeared inside, expecting them to do what they were told.

"Obey," Germany ordered quietly. "We have no time to argue about that. If England was human he'd probably be already dead." He nudged Turkey to move. "Hurry it up."

Denmark and Turkey carried England inside. When the stretcher had been securely laid down on the table that acted as the operation table, and everyone including additional personnel had been driven out, Liechtenstein closed the door repeating the order of no one coming in. Inside were now only the two unconscious nations, Norway and Estonia, and the all medics, including Hungary.

Germany sat down on a bench by their fire. It was currently about to die down, so he added a piece of wood to it and heaved a heavy sigh, letting his head drop down. "And now we wait," he said to no one special.

America slumped down behind him and leaned to Germany's back, closing his eyes and clutching his shoulder. "Fuck all this," he said and inhaled, shaking. "Why can't we just go home already? This isn't a proper war…"

"Then what is it?" Denmark asked, walking in circles in the other side of the fire, kicking a dead branch ahead of him.

"This is just stupid," Lithuania mumbled from a log, taking support from Ukraine to keep sitting without hurting his side.

"Then how does it differ from a war?" Germany asked.

"This is even stupider."

"Is fighting to keep your life and return home stupid?" Canada wondered.

"At least normally," Lithuania specified. "One knows why they have to defend themselves. This time, we just have to."

"True," Russia admitted, smiling. "Even if they say we just have to think about getting back, it's really annoying not to know anything, right?"

Turkey opened his mouth to say something but decided not to. No one commented anymore. The nations sat or stood silent on the yard, if one could really call it a yard. It was just a normal clearing in the forest, only a bit bigger; and if there had once been a garden, there was no real evidence of that. Only their own footsteps and the fire had made it look like someone lived there. Had they had the time, and no fighting had been upon them, a couple of the girls at least would have probably tried some gardening to kill time, but currently no one thought about such things.

The benches and logs carried outside were now reserved for the injured, the healthy making themselves as comfortable as possible on the ground. Denmark had gotten bored walking and leaned against the wall of their hut. Turkey came to sit down beside his legs, massaging his arms gently after carrying England through the forest. No one said a word. Some attempted to say something, but just sighed or coughed instead so no one would notice. No one wanted to say something, fearing it would end up somehow mentioning the fact that they were now _again_ in danger of losing one of their comrades. First America, then Iceland, Lithuania, Spain, Korea (who had been saved from dying from blood loss only by Turkey's fast reaction), and now England. Their break had back fired them.

"So," Russia finally said and gathered everyone's attention to himself. "What happened?"

"We don't know," America said from the ground voice full of concern and shook his head. "We just explored that old hut and it just… boomed." He stopped and let his head fall between his knees.

Japan sighed and took a deep breath. "The one who knows best is England himself for he was only one inside that old building by the time. We just saw the explosion."

"The whole thing just collapsed on him," Turkey explained, hitting the back of his head against the wall behind him. "Like someone had sneezed onto a card house."

"That explosion," Germany started, took a short break and then continued, "was clearly from a minor bomb. Not big enough to normally collapse buildings; that pile of wood was just too old to withhold it. The questions are, however: how did it end up there, or rather _who_ put in there? Was it there before we arrived to this world?" He glanced around him. "Or did someone put it there just for us?"

"Just think," France said, sounding surprisingly calm. "What would have happened if we all had been in there? Or maybe just a few more? Two? Three of us?"

"Let's not think about that," Germany decided strictly, not wanting to make the situation any darker than it was already.

The silence returned for a while, before it was broken by Germany again, who sighed and, warning America he was going to leave, stood up. "Have the ones in the front been informed of this?"

Italy shook his head. "Sealand has been there all the time and I waited for someone to tell me what to say."

Germany nodded. "You stay here. One messenger at each end is the best. I'm going back to the front now. Someone coming back later tell me England's condition." He picked up his gun, ignoring some questioning glances concerning his sudden leave.

"I'll come with you," Russia said, smiling again, being the only one who could.

Germany nodded and they were about to leave, when Japan suddenly spoke up. "Um, Germany?" When he had the commander's attention, his gaze averted away. "This is probably a bad time to ask, but…I feel in this case it is important."

Germany turned more around to look at the man properly. "What is it?"

Japan hesitated.

.*** *** ***

Germany thought in silence while he and Russia walked back to the tenth line where the rest of their troops were waiting and keeping guard. They had just passed the fourth line, jumping over the quick excuse of a trench: one of their worst, only the eighth one was even more pathetic. Germany sidestepped to avoid a stone and jumped over another. He could hear Russia breaking a branch behind him while following.

He thought about Japan's question.

_"Who's going to replace England as your second-in-command?"_

Neither China nor Japan would do, as they were leaders of the wings. Russia had already announced he wasn't willing and so had many others, though excluding Russia none of the others had been among the list of choices he had immediately formed in his mind after hearing the question. America had glared at Japan for the question and opened his mouth to complain, but Netherlands had stopped him by setting a hand to his shoulder.

_"Face it."_

Turkey had told him he was more than willing to take the role. But he was an important member to the left wing and China wouldn't probably agree to that so easily. Switzerland would come in handy for his talents, but considering his position as a sniper, not to mention his individuality and a habit of asking no one for help. Switzerland would have to come down to the trenches and they'd have to either choose another sniper or resign the position altogether.

_"Don't be stupid."_

Thinking about his remaining options, Germany hurried his steps. Denmark came to mind. He hadn't said anything back then. Thinking that he was now the only Nordic remaining in the front, he could have potential to do the job. Sweden could possible still return though and Germany had already decided that before this all was over, Finland would come in to the fight. However, those two wouldn't be coming soon enough, so Denmark would be the more sufficient choice. Now that he thought about it, the axe wielder would be an obvious choice. He was a center, positioned beside him and had both experience and will to fight and lead. And yet…

_"Give me time."_

Germany stopped beside an old tree, pressing his hand against for support, but stood straight and looked up at the faint light of the slowly descending sun through the branches above him. How stupid could he be? They had no time. No opportunity to gather up and hold a useless conference like usual when something came up. This time they needed to get something done. Lowering his gaze to the ground before him Germany frowned, narrowing his eyes. He had a feeling they had forgotten something important.

_"Give me time."_

Germany raised his hand to his forehead and grimaced. Something was off, terribly off in his mind. He had forgotten something. England's case had triggered something in his memory. They all had been forgetting something. That they would need something, he knew it. And now…

_"Don't be stupid."_

Why bombs? There hadn't been anything like that. No heavy artillery, but…grenades…a mortar…landmines…the old trenches…magic…

_"You don't have to worry about that."_

But…

_"Don't be stupid."_

"Are you okay?" Russia asked from the other side of the tree, sounding interested.

"I'm not!" Germany found himself shouting, before he snapped back to his senses from his deep thoughts. Russia raised his eyebrows, surprised for the outburst. Germany stared at the ground, recalling all his thoughts, all which had happened. He suddenly felt oddly relaxed. "No, I am. Let's go."

He let go of the tree his fingers had been clutching and started towards the next line again. He was stopped by Russia's next words.

"Hey. We have forgotten something. Haven't we?"

.*** *** ***

The night was already starting to fall when the door of the hut opened and Finland stepped out. Everyone started as the door opened, but relaxed when they saw that it was Finland coming out. Everyone who could stood up and opened their mouths to ask the same question, but in the end, no one said anything. Finland looked so tired, he was ready to collapse. He closed the door behind him and remained standing there not saying a word, just looking at the ground before him. Many nations fidgeted restlessly, waiting for the medic to say something.

_This can't be good_, America thought and covered his face. _He's taking too long to say something. It must be unpleasant. Oh God…don't tell me, please don't tell me England died._

Without America knowing it, many of the others had thought the same. Finland didn't look encouraging and the silence made things worse. Turkey was just about to shout and tell the Finn to say something, but he knew it would be a bad idea.

Finally, Finland took a deep breath and spoke out. "Okay," he said slowly. Too slowly for most, but they didn't say anything. Everyone held their breaths waiting to hear what the medic would say next. "He's alive."

A breath they had all been suppressing came out as a united, relieved sigh. But Finland hadn't stopped yet. "But only just," he continued, making many faces fall.

"What do you mean, only just?" America asked, tensed.

"It means," Finland said clearly, looking back at America, "that I wouldn't be surprised if he died."

"Isn't it your job to prevent that?" Romano huffed, and receiving glares from various directions.

"You think I have not done everything I possibly can?" Finland asked back, too tired to get offended. "Regardless of what I do next, he could still die." When everyone seemed stressed and defeated again, Finland decided he had to say something more. "But we'll do everything we can."

"Of course you will," Japan said and patted his shoulder. "Germany ordered us to tell him when we know something about England. I'll go tell him when I return to the front."

But Finland shook his head. "I'm not done yet."

"That doesn't sound too good," Netherlands noted.

Finland nodded, looking down. "There was one thing I couldn't do anything about."

Netherlands sighed. "This really doesn't sound good…"

Finland raised his hand he had kept on his side until now and opened his fist, revealing a bloodied little stick, a little over a half a size of his palm. Now when he showed them his hands, they noticed there still was some blood in them as well. "This," Finland explained when many people came closer to see what he had, "was in his right eye."

"Oh Jesus," Canada sighed and hid his face behind his hands, knowing what Finland was saying.

"He's eyeball has been completely destroyed", Finland said, shaking his head slowly. "There is no way I can revive it."

.*** *** ***

"Evening. Anything new?" Germany asked as he jumped down to the tenth trench.

"Njah," Poland answered. "They disappeared completely. This is kinda boring, you know."

"I see," Germany said, gazing towards the forest, where the eleventh line they could have won back but had decided to abandon was located. "Poland. Go gather everyone here. Who's the front scout right now?"

"Australia. Shall I call him?" Poland got up. "You have something new for us or what?"

"It's important, you'd better hurry," Russia answered. "I'll go in the other direction."

"And please call Australia," Germany said.

The next moment they were all startled as they heard a thud behind them; Switzerland appeared in the trench. The sound had obviously been him jumping down from his tree.

"Oh, has a monkey fallen from his tree?" Russia asked playfully. Then he quickly slipped away to tell the present right wing members about the meeting, while Germany held Switzerland's rifle so the other couldn't use it and tried to remind him (and Russia, who didn't listen, however) about the basics of teamwork.

When Russia was gone Switzerland huffed, irritated, and snatched his rifle and hand free, sitting down. "It's too dark to snipe anyone anymore anyway," he explained and then went on. "New orders or something?"

Germany thought about it for a while, then shook his head. "Just some updated information. But it's very important."

One by one the nine remaining nations in the front aside from them, started to gather up to the center. The last one to arrive was Australia, who had been spying for their enemy near the eleventh line. Germany took a bit of a risk when keeping no guards in the grounds, but he trusted what their ally had told them: they would be safe for today. And Germany wouldn't be taking long anyway.

.*** *** ***

When Japan arrived to the line, it was already well in the night. Turkey had apparently come back with him but gone straight to his own post in the left wing without bothering to come to the center. He'd tell the news there, while Japan came first to the commander before going to tell his own wing.

"Germany," Japan called, coming to the fire the center wing had made to warm up. "England's treating is finished. He is alive."

"Glad to hear that," Germany said and actually smiled first time in a while. He had almost fallen asleep before Japan arrived. "Remind me I'll give Finland some extra credit for that."

Japan smiled slightly and sat down between Switzerland and Poland. "I doubt he wants any. England is still in an uncertain condition and he lost his right eye completely."

Russia raised his eyebrows and spoke before no one else could comment. "Poor little one. That had to hurt."

Germany sighed, sending Russia a half-hearted glare. "Forget I smiled just now," he mumbled and closed his eyes, the sleepless nights and fighting starting to get the better of him.

"Finland collapsed soon after he told us the news," Japan continued, glancing apologetically at Germany for telling bad news like there already wasn't enough. "He was exhausted, but all he needs is just a good rest."

Switzerland huffed and poked up the fire with a branch. "Now tell me where we could enjoy that. I could use some of that as well."

"No kidding," Poland said and yawned, stretching. "Sitting in forests and fighting is just totally not my style."

For a long while they didn't say anything. Very soon Germany and Poland fell asleep. Germany was leaning his back against the dirt of the trench wall. His eyes were closed and shoulders relaxed, hands resting on his knee and lap, but Japan guessed he would have woken up to the lightest sound that didn't belong to in the picture. Poland had cuddled on the ground on his side, using a piece of fire wood and a jacket as his pillow and cover. Japan smiled a little when he mumbled something in his sleep and cuddled up more, pushing his rifle further away.

Switzerland kept staring at the fire, having taken it upon himself to make sure it wouldn't die out. There hadn't been too much good firewood around, or at least they hadn't found so much in the darkening evening earlier. If Denmark had been around with his axe it would have been a lot easier though. But there he was, insisting to take care of Finland until he was better, since he had deemed Sweden 'currently useless.' The hut was back in use now that England's surgery was over and England himself was now lying on America's old bed in the same room as Spain and Iceland were, and Seychelles was beside him. Or she had been when Japan and Turkey had left.

Suddenly Russia stood up. "I'll be back in a moment," he said quietly to the others who were yet conscious and climbed up from the trench and over the protection mounds, disappearing from sight. Japan raised his eyebrows, but Switzerland didn't seem to care and they both stayed quiet because miraculously neither of the ones who were sleeping had woken up. The sound of Russia's steps soon faded towards the right wing. Japan thought inwardly whether he should go back to the hut already, like he had planned. While thinking that, he fell asleep as well.

Switzerland stayed awake. He wasn't going to tell anyone, but he had actually fallen asleep earlier in his tree, which had been absolutely uncomfortable and could be used to describe how tired he actually was. But that nap had taken away the worst of his fatigue. A few times times he added wood to the fire, most of the time he just sat staring at the flames. Deep in thought, he didn't know how much time exactly passed until he heard Germany grunt, waking up and straightening slowly, massaging his shoulder.

Germany looked around him to catch the situation and frowned. "Where's Russia?"

.*** *** ***

Russia didn't know how long of a distance he had walked and it didn't really matter, because he would go as far as he needed to. He didn't actually know why, whether it was his instinct or had he unconsciously heard or seen something, but whatever the reason, he went on. While he had been delivering the meet-up call to the right wing, Cuba had said something that had sent a small shock down his spine and stopped him to think.

_"I can't believe some people actually like war."_

That had been enough for Russia to get wrapped up in thinking. Enough for him to partially skip everything Germany was talking about with the others, not that it mattered for he already knew. He remembered saying something to his sisters and had a minor vague memory of hysteric Sealand, but that didn't matter either. Russia too was tired, but not enough to fall asleep by the fire. The speechless company was very welcome for him so he could rethink everything they had done, what their enemy had done, and what their 'supposed' allies had said. The fire and Poland's rifle he saw on the other side of it had kept his thoughts on the right trails.

He had earlier rejected the thought that he would replace England as the second-in-command for a reason he didn't want to admit but had to nevertheless. He was more accustomed to winning battles and wars with sheer man power and he knew it. This kind of war wasn't his trade. But when he gave it a thought, even he could recognize something that didn't fit in. And with Germany as tired as he was, it was his turn to try to reduce their problems.

He thought he knew exactly what they had forgotten.

Reaching a little clearing, Russia stopped and let his eyes move from tree to bush to other indistinct shapes in the dark forest only the night sky illuminated. Glancing around his feet he spotted a fallen branch and picked it up. With that in his hand he started tracing the edge of the clearing, carefully pushing the bushes and underbrush out of his way to see what he could on the bottom of the forest. For a couple of times he stopped, staying in one spot longer than others, and once he crouched down and used his hand to see better between long hay. After a while he returned to the center of the clearing, his back to the direction he had been traveling.

Without looking, Russia threw the branch over his shoulder. It fell through the underbrush at the edge of the clearing. A second after it fell, an explosion behind him made Russia's jacket flap violently around him and flashed unnatural light in the vicinity around him. And in the light of the explosion, one could easily spot the nation who stood still at the clearing and see his face.

Russia smiled.

* * *

A/N: Again, sorry for disappearing like that. *bow* I ask for your forgiveness.

Answers to reviews (I hope these lovely people still bother reading):

**cat'akai:** Yes. ^^ I love Finland like that as well.

**Howl's Owls:** Thank you, that scene was hard to write. It looked too much of a movie scene in my head. P.S. I have the tendency to think the same :/

**Ophelion:** Your reaction was priceless. Thank you. It really made me feel I had succeeded at doing this. I'm sorry for not updating soon. *sad smile*

**Nighttimefirefly:** Your review, for some reason, makes me immensively happy. A simple review says everything I wanted to hear.

**Loud Mucker Complex:** Hello Sacchan-desuu =D Prussia is in our world. He wasn't in the conference and therefore never got transported. Germany was earlier worried about him conquering the world while they weren't there to stop him. And triangle love is acceptable in Hetalia fandom anytime =)

And to my dear new beta reader, **Wings of Avalon**: Thank you for saving my story. I'll try to improve my writing.


	12. 11 The Bombing Chapter

**11. The Bombing Chapter**

…**in which Russia takes a walk**

The first bomb caused another one to explode. It was followed by yet another plus a series of explosions lit the forest behind Russia's back. They were not big explosions; not enough to make a fire break out in the forest. Russia wondered about it a bit because the series, which were longer than he had thought, should have been enough to do the trick together, but there weren't any. It was better for him however, so he didn't bother too much with it; just tossing it aside like he normally did with complicated things that worked anyway even if done the easier way.

Trees shattered behind him, leaves burned a while before the fire died out. The noise was loud, but Russia listened to the last of it, like trying to learn something from the intervals of echoes and new explosions. He counted fourteen bombs before it was silent again. The last ones came from pretty far away: they had been set to explode in a queue where one explosion triggered all the others. Russia congratulated himself for finding that out and calculating a safe spot to stand.

When it was completely silent, he walked closer to see the results. There was smoke, burned moss and hay, shattered pieces of wood, and a strong, bitter taste in the air. He walked to the now mostly destroyed area, the ground crunching under his feet. The smell was actually pleasant now that it was slowly mixing with the fresh air and the thickest smoke was fading. Russia looked sadly at one of the smaller trees that had fallen in two, the other end still standing burned on the ground.

"So sad how many young lives must end in war," he said casually, and, walking a few steps past the said young life, continued as casually. "Don't you agree?"

His conversation partner huffed, irritated. "Isn't this nice? First you ruin my masterpiece before it even is done, then remain unhurt by doing that like you'd be mocking it, and lastly, oh how kind, you easily noticed me. Am I that obvious?"

Russia smiled, humming shortly. "You should really ask permission before using someone else's bombs. That wire system was new to me though…hey, come here will you?"

The other sighed, stepping into his line of sight from behind a tree. "Even if I asked for your permission, you would hear it and if you heard, you wouldn't give it. Why would I bother? And the system is new to you, because I invented it."

"That doesn't mean you can use _my _inventions behind my back," Russia lectured and gave almost a gentle look to the messy-haired man. "How many bombs have you set to these forests?"

The foreign nation leant on the tree he had been hiding behind. "Enough to prevent you from escaping."

"And enough to prevent us from getting encircled?"

"That's an unavoidable side-effect."

"What if someone besides us and our opponent would get bombed?" Russia asked, raising his eyebrows.

The other enemy nation didn't hesitate a second when giving an answer. "That too would be an unavoidable side-effect." They were silent for a while before the man continued. "Did you perhaps mean those two who have been helping for a while now?"

Russia raised his eyebrow. "Oh, you know? You don't sound like you care, though."

"I don't," the war-maniac admitted. "It just makes things more interesting."

Russia hummed in thought for a while and then gave the foreigner another gentle look. "Was it your doing that blew our second-in-command up?"

Now the man looked surprised. "Was he your second-in-command? Oh dear, that's interesting…"

"Well, was it?" Russia asked again.

The nation was silent for a moment, before he answered matter of factly. "I'm surprised you set that one off. There aren't many bombs around there yet." He smiled shortly. "I found it more interesting here where all the action was."

Russia crouched down briefly to pick up a strong-looking fallen branch to his hand. "That's not nice, you know. Our poor little commander has enough to do as it is."

"I was here from the very beginning," the man answered. "You stop ignoring people on daily basis, because _that's _not nice."

"No," Russia corrected and straightened the gun on his back. "I meant England."

"Oh?" the nation said, raising his eyebrows. "I see. What do you need that for?" He eyed the branch, sounding mostly interested.

Russia hummed. "I was planning to beat you up with it," he said playfully.

"You have noticed you have a rifle, haven't you?" the other noted.

"This is a sub machine gun," Russia corrected lightheartedly. "A PPSh-41. Brings back so many memories; I haven't used one for decades. But it doesn't live up to the purpose now. Too neat." Russia raised his branch. "Actually I would have liked a water pipe more…"

His enemy didn't move. "And if I used my gun?"

"You wouldn't," Russia answered self-confidently. "That's not nice."

The nation smiled. Stepping away from the tree, he crouched down and picked up a branch of his own. "It might not."

.*** *** ***

**A while earlier…**

Germany woke up when his attempt to change his sleeping position ended with an uncomfortable ache in his shoulder, courtesy of a root sticking up from the dirt. He made an opposing sound and reluctantly shook sleep off his head, sitting up. Switzerland was sitting by the fire and gave him a short, indifferent look, while Germany tried to catch the situation with his still sleepy eyes.

Germany counted the people nearby and frowned. "Where's Russia?"

Switzerland shrugged. "Who knows. Said he's going to be back in a moment and wondered off. I'm not interested."

Germany hummed in thought and stretched his neck and arms. He would definitely like to sleep a little more tonight. But first…

"Aren't you going to sleep?" he asked Switzerland. "I can watch the fire, if you want."

Switzerland shook his head. "You're more tired than me," he said truthfully. "I can manage without sleeping."

Germany raised his eyebrows slightly to the softer voice Switzerland shared rarely with anyone other than Liechtenstein. "It's easier to hit the target when your eyes aren't fuzzy for lack of sleep," he then pointed out, despite being happy about the answer inwardly.

Now the sharpshooter snorted and looked a bit offended, but kept his voice down for the sake of sleeping Japan and Poland. "I could hit these uneducated fries, eyes covered in a snowstorm, from a mile away, tired or not."

Germany sighed and leaned his back to the dirt wall again. "Of course, that's how it was again. How rude of me," he said tiredly and quickly started to drift off to the sleep again.

Both he and Switzerland, as well as Poland and Japan, however, jerked up the next second when distant, but yet clear string of explosive sounds ran through the forest.

.*** *** ***

**Present**

Russia's stick could take the first hit against the other branch, but snapped in two when they second time clashed together. Hadn't he said he would have liked his water pipe? Russia didn't waste a second to close in, but the man managed to block Russia's hit with his arm. At some point their branches had stuck together.

For a second neither of them moved.

The next thing Russia's opponent noticed was that his branch was also in two pieces and Russia's branch was closing to his temple.

From behind.

Russia watched how his opponent ducked away to avoid his hit and turned around; swinging his wooden weapon in a circle to make sure Russia wasn't too close. Russia stepped away to avoid getting hit and stopped. His opponent did the same. The other stole a side glance to their snapped branches, raising his eyebrows slightly, though it was difficult to see in the dark. Thankfully the moonlight reached the ground well.

Their fight resumed without the change of weapons. The uneven terrain had them both staggering. It wasn't once either of them took distance to get away from a difficult base. After a while Russia could be sure that while the other was definitely quicker than him, he was physically more powerful and sturdy. They were also both skilled enough to avoid getting hit seriously.

Finally, they stopped to take a breath.

The remains of the branches they had long since abandoned. There they stood apart from each other, neither saying a word. Their fight had brought them to the burned circle one of the bombs had created.

Russia looked around, partly to see where he had the best footing to fight, partly because there had been one thing he had wanted to ask for a while. His opponent charged forwards, having decided it was time to continue. Russia blocked his hits and the other way round again. The fight continued.

The continuous pace they kept up then suddenly broke, when the foreigner tripped on the remains of a small tree, almost falling over. Russia tried to use the risen opportunity to finish the fighting, but unfortunately, the foreigner didn't have any intention to be defeated.

The next moment, Russia noticed he was staring into the barrel of a gun.

When the handgun banged, Russia was already on the side of it and holding his opponent's wrist.

The local nation leant against Russia, immediately finding his way to the submachine gun hanging on his back. Had it been anyone else, Russia would have just knocked him out. But just anyone couldn't have found the gun's safety and get around all the things that kept the rifle safely unused. This wasn't just anyone, but a war-maniac nation who had numerous years of firsthand knowledge about guns. And besides, Russia didn't have a free hand to hit him: the other was still holding the wrist and keeping the handgun away from him, the other was locked against his body by his opponent.

Russia leant forward and took a step backwards. His opponent lost his balance and the string of fire from the sub machine gun went past his head without hitting him whatsoever as Russia threw his opponent away from him.

Both guns fell to the ground. The nations stumbled onto the ground as well, but they stood up quickly to prevent the opponent from getting hold of the guns. As their fist fight went on once more, the guns were soon out of their reach.

Both were out of breath.

The foreign nation huffed and suddenly jumped backwards, retreating quickly a good distance before Russia could register what he was up to. When their distance was ten meters already, he understood what was going on and retreated quickly to go out a range of a hand grenade.

An explosion shook the night once more.

The foreign nation had ducked to cover in time and when he was sure it was safe again, he lifted himself up to see if he had hit his opponent.

"RGD-5 hand grenades are effective up to fifteen meters," Russia lectured casually coming in sight as well from behind bigger tree. He smiled. "However, only up to three meters from the site of detonation the explosion is lethal and the time it takes to explode can be up to thirteen seconds. You probably knew that I also knew this, so you must have taken the pin out shortly before throwing but so that it's still safe for you. Meaning, I had about four to six seconds before the explosion. It was easy for me to take cover." Russia smiled again and leant on the tree, enjoying the bothered face the other was making, which meant he had hit the spot.

His opponent sighed. "You're really depressing. But yes, maybe that was a bit desperate. How did you know I had a long fuse and not a shorter one?"

"Simply because I managed to get away in time. Those things aren't meant to be used in one-on-one combat, you know," Russia said, tilting his head. "I don't have hand grenades and you used guns too. So you're not being nice. "

"And I prefer being intelligent, not nice," the local answered. "Not long after our fight started I knew I would have a slim chance of beating you in a close combat as it is. I like my life."

"Pity," Russia said, sounding like he meant it. "I could live without it."

For a moment it was silent. Russia watched peacefully as the other searched something with hand behind his back. Their eyes never wandered off each other's forms that weren't so clear now that there was distance between them.

Then Russia decided to spoke up and ask the thing that had been bothering him. "Hey."

The other shifted. "What?"

"Why are you using such small explosives? You all. If you used more effective weapons against me now, or us in general..."

The question hung in the air and was met by a moment of silence. Finally, the foreigner spoke. "Your allies haven't told you so much I see. Well, whatever. Outsiders like you can't probably understand. But to ease your interest let's put it simply." The foreign nation started walking closer and looked Russia under his eyebrows. "This land wouldn't allow it."

"Eh?" Russia managed to say, but he couldn't ask for clarification, because his opponent ran forwards and pulled an army knife from the back of his belt.

Russia decided the foreign nation had given up even trying to be nice. Soon he could feel himself being cornered. The other was quite skilled with the knife and managed to stop his attempts to turn the weapon against him.

After a few wrong moves blood ran down his jaw and forearm.

Russia made a silent decision: it was time to end this and stop that knife.

Now.

The short blade stained with blood.

Russia blinked, wincing slightly. His opponent startled and stared at Russia's hand that was now squeezing his fingers after Russia had stick his palm straight through the tip of the knife.

"Caught you," Russia chirped shortly and raised his fist.

This time his hit landed.

The downside was they both fell over. Russia couldn't later name which one of them it was who tripped first. Next moment they wrestled trying to get either away from or on the top of the other. The knife dropped beside them at some point. The conclusion was that Russia, who holding his knee on the foreign nation's stomach, was readying a fist full of bad temper to bunch at the other again. He didn't get that far when his eyes widened. His opponent held up another hand grenade in front of his face.

The pin was missing.

Russia started backwards and stumbled up to his feet to get away, but he was stopped when something tightened around his neck: the man on the ground smiled, holding Russia's scarf and throwing the hand grenade a bit upwards, away from his hand, though it didn't serve any deeper purpose.

In about three seconds they would both be dead.

_Not so good_, Russia thought._Oh my, oh my…_

Two seconds.

Russia made a last attempt to detach the scarf and get away.

He failed.

_Germany will get angry_, he thought. _I wonder if my sisters will miss me._

One second.

In that second, to their surprise, their fight was interrupted. Switzerland jumped over a fallen tree trunk and hit the hand grenade with a rifle end.

Zero.

The grenade flew away between trees and exploded further away from them, making Switzerland and Russia duck down to the ground. When Russia's opponent got over his surprise, Switzerland was already standing on his hand and pointing a rifle at his face and glaring. Russia was facing Germany.

"WHAT?" Germany raged, holding fistful of Russia's scarf and coat in his hand and raising the bigger nation up. "Do you think you're doing?"

Russia smiled innocently. "Taking a walk?"

Germany's eyes widened and he gave up trying to conceal his rage. "You have got to be kidding me!"

.*** *** ***

The nations gathered to the front yard of the Home. Everyone was buzzing and whispering with the person next to them. Some more people, also a few of the injured, came from the hut to close the loose circle around their prisoner of war.

"How's England?" Germany asked Seychelles who came from the main door last, closing it behind her.

"Alive," Seychelles answered, sighing. "He has seen better days. He lost so much blood that for an instant I thought we would run out of donations."

Germany frowned, grunting and glanced to the closed door, thinking if he should go see. "Is Finland okay?"

"He's still sleeping," Seychelles said and tried smiling. "He has had a bit of a rough day."

Germany hummed and turned to look at their prisoner. He decided to stay outside. "Well then, let's begin." He stepped forwards and entered the circle of nations. The campfire was illuminating the yard as the sun was only about to rise. "A moment ago Russia _kindly _got himself into trouble."

Russia laughed a bit, sounding innocently proud of himself. Then he winced when Hungary tightened the bandage around his hand not so carefully.

"But thanks to that," Germany continued. "We now have a prisoner who will _kindly _answer a few questions."

"Only a few?" the foreigner repeated, amused. "Oh, so you're doing better than I thought?" He shifted, trying to make himself more comfortable on the ground. His hands had been tied behind his back.

"Be quiet if you're not asked to talk," Germany said strictly and turned at their prisoner. "If I remember correctly, you are the other of the two nations that came to us approximately four days ago, declaring to us this ridiculous war. You possess no considerable military force but you would have brains to use one, but since you rarely do, we were instructed not to worry about you. But I can see we have been a bit wrong there."

"That can hardly be my fault," the foreigner defended.

Germany came closer and stood before the prisoner. "Listen now," he said. "Let me make a few things clear. One: I'm very angry right now. Two: None of the nations around you is unarmed. Three: No, you can't have a lawyer. And four." He crouched down before the tied man and lowered his voice. "I'm pretty sure Russia wouldn't be at all bothered to play with you a bit more if I asked him to."

The foreign nation's eyebrow twitched and he gave a timid smile. "Yes. I understand. It's my fault. My apologies."

"Russia," Germany called, rising up. Their prisoner turned a bit white.

"Yes?" Russia asked, seemingly excited. "Can I play with him?"

"Unfortunately you have to save that for later," Germany answered. Russia looked very disappointed, but Germany continued. "Tell me exactly what were you doing between the time Switzerland saw you leaving and we came to save you from the hand grenade. And add a reason why you went alone."

Russia thought for a moment. "As I said, I was taking a walk and–"

"Could you this once be serious?" Germany shouted, cutting that explanation short.

Russia smiled. "I went alone because everyone seemed tired; poor things. And I wasn't even sure I'd find something." Russia told them the summary of his adventure, starting from the conversation he and Germany had earlier when coming to the line. He skipped mostly the part of the fight, but Germany looked satisfied.

"I see," he said and looked back to the prisoner who had sat silently still all the time. Germany (ignoring America, who was extremely jealous of Russia right now and making a show of it) gave Russia's story a short think before talking again. "Finally something explains why our opponent hasn't encircled us yet. Your bombs prevented him from doing that safely. So he wasn't just a proud tactical idiot who only charges straight forwards without a proper plan."

"Uh, no," the foreigner interrupted. "He's exactly like that. Tactical idiot is actually very descriptive," he said, and then added, "but of course his army personnel are cleverer."

"It is true that we are not fighting against the worst opponent I could imagine," China said, raising a finger. "Like a special operation unit or air force or something. But I still think they are underestimating us."

"Fools," Korea said and grinned widely.

"True, he was surprised when you put up a fight," their prisoner admitted. "I expected you to, since I saw your allies around here."

"You don't seem bothered with that," Germany noted, noticing the same thing Russia had earlier.

The foreigner smiled briefly. "No. A one-sided battle is not something I would enjoy. I came here in the first place just to see how good you are in real life, so that's more than fine. I must say I'm surprised, I didn't think you would have this good teamwork."

"Situation calls," Austria answered.

"That matter aside," Germany said, taking the lead again. "If you've been using bombs to prevent us from escaping, it makes one more thing very clear." He stepped before the prisoner again and this time the look in his eyes was very dark. "You set the bomb that blew England up, didn't you?" He grabbed the other by collar and yanked the small foreigner effortlessly up. "Didn't you?"

The foreigner looked back to Germany's furious eyes keeping a straight, tense face. He didn't try to struggle against Germany's grip. The nations silently waited for an answer.

Finally the nation came to some conclusion for his answer and gave it in a simple manner. "Yes."

Germany raised his fist up to hit, but stopped himself. He breathed through his teeth a couple of times, before he spoke again. "Preventing the encircling really helped us," Germany said lowly. "Up until the last evening, it was the most welcome thing for days. Since we are not planning to run away, it didn't bother us. But now…well?" he asked and tightened his grip from the collar. "Have you _learnt _our strength?"

The foreigner nodded. "I have."

"Russia aside, he had fun anyway," Germany continued and let go of the prisoner who staggered and fell over to the ground. "How are you planning making up…for England?"

The prisoner sat up. "I am your enemy. Making up for what I have done before this is over doesn't really belong to the war code I know."

"This is no war," Germany answered and turned away. "This is just stupidity." He walked back to the circle of nations, who had been watching the scene.

"Why didn't you punch him?" America asked, clenching his teeth. Denmark was holding him back from going to do it himself. "If you can't, I can do it for you. Can I?"

Germany didn't look at him and spoke only after exiting the circle. "Denmark."

"Hm?" Denmark turned his head to look after him.

"From this point on," Germany said and turned to look back at the Nordic. "You'll work as my second-in-command."

Denmark looked genuinely surprised, but when the information was starting to sink to his brain, he smiled. "At yer service, commander," he grinned.

"I'm tired," Germany said, sounding like he really was and opened the hut door. "I must rest for a moment before everything starts again. I'll leave this to you." The hut door closed behind him.

"Well then," Denmark started, immediately internalizing his new task. He shoved America away and grabbed his axe, stepping to the circle. "Mister Bomber jerk."

Denmark walked to the man who sat on the ground, looking at the axe restlessly. Russia and Switzerland joined him, and the three of them stood before the prisoner.

Denmark set the other end of the axe to the ground and grinned. Russia raised his healthy hand to his scarf, tucking it slowly down so it wouldn't get in a way this time. Switzerland removed his gun's safety. They all gave the sitting man a glare, which combined into an atmosphere which made their prisoner sweat.

"Ye're going to repay what ye've done, aren't ye?" Denmark asked, sounding not at all friendly.

* * *

A/N: Hello again, and thank you so much for remembering me after all that time I made you wait. It made me really happy. I hope you like this chapter, because to be totally honest: I don't. Not much, at least, but it has it's moments as well. It is just the first time in my life I've written a one-in-one fighting scene with no magical type of powers so I'm being critical with myself.

And to your wonderful reviews I always appreciate and cherish:

**First to all of you:** Thank you, I'm happy to be back. I feel bad for leaving you for such a long time. I'll keep this up with all my might as long as my imagination doesn't betray me.

**NighttimeFirefly: **Somehow, you make me want to comment your review, but I don't know what to say. So I'll just say: thank you for supporting me.

**Loud Mucker Complex:** *is being tackled* Capslock is just fine if you feel you need it. =D If it helps you, England lost his eye in this fic before you mentioned you wanted him to suffer. But I like his eyes as well. And I like making cliffhangers. XD I think my readers have noticed that. And thank you, I'm sorry about that as well.

And to my beta-reader: **Wings**, thank you again. Don't worry about the delay, you're wonderful. And don't get yourself sick in the heat.


	13. 12 The Negotiating Chapter

**12. The Negotiating Chapter**

…**in which the white flags are stained**

The enemy troops came back later on the following morning. Before that, they had had a busy time: their prisoner had given in before Denmark, Russia, and Switzerland, and handed them an exact map of the locations of all the bombs he had so far set and also the location of his explosive storage on the field. The nations had around the forest for almost five hours, searching for the ones that were on their way and replanting them on their enemy's territory. They also found a few of their prisoner's underlings, who had come to help their nation to set the traps and at the same time brought new supplies. The nations greeted them and made clear that they would now take custody of all the explosives.

The only ones who weren't running around the forest (excluding the injured, three medics, Estonia, and Norway) were Germany, who had given Denmark the duty of supervising the searching so he could rest; and Russia, who was taking note of everything that was found and planning new traps with Turkey and Hungary. The latter ran off somewhere repeatedly but came back to hear Russia's new ideas once in a while. Also, eight people were left to guard the eleventh line in the case their enemy decided to deviate from his today's schedule, which had been as well very _kindly _revealed by their prisoner. Two of the eight acted as scouts and were as far as the twelfth line keeping guard. They couldn't have their enemy attacking while their own people were running around the forest with explosives.

.*** *** ***

"Pity we can't put up more mines," Germany had explained his worries after waking up. "We don't have the space nor the time for that. I guess we can just try planting them while retreating. That's going to be risky."

"I thought about that," Denmark had answered. "Why don't we just set explosives behind our own lines and retreat past them?"

"Don't be an idiot or I'll regret making you an officer," Germany had said dryly. "Even if we all knew where the mines were, you can't know where you must dodge or take cover if retreating in a hurry. I don't want to blow up some of our own."

"I, on the other hand, have thought about that part," Russia had said, smiling as usual. "We can set mines that don't explode by stepping on them, but when they are detached from their external a power source."

"Is there such things?" Hungary had asked, eyes round.

"He has some." Russia had nodded to their prisoner who had been sitting beside the dying fire and been now guarded only by Latvia. "He used that kind of a wire system earlier that was new to me. It made the bombs explode so that if one explodes all others follow in queue."

"So if one soldier steps on a mine, the whole squad can be eliminated?" Hungary had sighed. "He really seems like a mad scientist like our allies once said, doesn't he?"

"But we don't have time to set that kind of thing up," Germany had returned to the topic. "Our enemy will attack before we'll get all the wires on place."

"That's why I'll request that I can take someone with me to set it behind our lines," Russia had insisted. "Two lines maybe. Then we can use it while you retreat and give you some time in return. Stop being difficult and give me permission, commander." Russia had given them his brightest smile.

.*** *** ***

Now that their enemy had begun to approach again as the scouts had warned a while ago, Germany was thinking _had this really been a good idea?_ Russia seemed very eager though.

Germany turned to their prisoner, who had been released from his bonds and was now with them near their ninth line. "Keep in mind that next time I hear about you, you can think yourself a dead man."

The foreigner sighed and shifted, trying to take a tickling branch of his neck. "Yes, I understand: I lost and shall retreat from the battle. And I know quite well that I'd have a very slim chance of coming back from here alive if I returned. Especially when you didn't tell me, how _did_ you reset the bombs?" He gave Germany a pleading look, because he was very interested of how it was be done by someone else than him.

"You really think I'd tell you something?" Germany asked, sounding like he thought the other was a total idiot. To be exact, he thought just that. "Now be a good boy and disappear, before I change my mind and get rid of you."

"I still think we should just kill him," Russia said cheerfully and tried to sit more comfortably. They were hiding in a bush.

"I really think I should be going now," the foreigner said and started to wiggle away backwards. "It was nice and educational meeting you. Bye now."

"Nice?" Germany repeated, frowning. "I don't think it was nice at all. I would have preferred you never being here in the first place."

The foreigner laughed and took his leave towards his own country. Normally Germany wouldn't have let a prisoner go before the war was over, at least not alone, but he didn't have enough personnel to guard him in either option, so he had to bear it. He turned to Russia.

"You two get the things done here and give me a note when you're ready." Germany waited for Russia to nod at least five times to show he had understood. "Try to make this so effective it'll stop them for the rest of the day. That's your goal, so keep that in mind." He waited for Russia to nod again. "I'll be going then. You know what to do." Germany gave them a smile. "Good luck. Come back safely when you're done. Both of you."

"Yes, sir, you too," Russia promised as Germany left. He turned to his comrade. "Shall we?" he asked playfully.

"Mm," Sweden grunted, nodding and they left the bushes at last to begin their mission.

A while later, as Germany dropped into their tenth trench to his place between Denmark and Belarus, the shouts and explosions ahead told them their traps and landmines were already doing their work. It meant that this far their plans had actually succeeded. At least some things seemed to work.

"How is it going?" Germany asked, crouching down to safe and set his gun into place to fire immediately when needed.

"Perfectly," Denmark replied, almost purring and let his other hand run on the helve of his axe lovingly.

"They'll break through it soon enough. It is not as effective as you calculated, but close," Belarus said emotionlessly. "How was brother?"

"Russia and Sweden have begun their mission," Germany informed and gave glances to his companions so they'd listen. "We must give them as much time as we can. Tactically speaking they'll need from two to three hours, but it doesn't hurt if they don't have to rush it and they can concentrate. I expect everyone to know that the realistically ideal situation is that it'll take us at least five hours to retreat to the next trap line. If Russia and Sweden fail this now, because of the lack of time or another reason, we're running out of good plans. So we must–"

"Understood," Belarus and Denmark said simultaneously and nodded, quickly sending Germany's "give it your best" message through the nations to the ends of the lines.

The territory around the tenth trench had both their wings spread, so China and Japan had again their own little groups to command. The word "little" was now Germany's problem number one. Although Belarus had originally been in the left wing, the lack of centers had her transferred to her current position beside Germany to replace Russia. They currently had a bad shortage of fighting force. They had seven nations seriously injured, as many slightly injured and the rest dead tired of all of this. The fighting was taking its toll of even such persons as Russia and Turkey who usually were untiring power machines, acting strong and encouraging. Then again, most of the nations, even Romano, had stopped most of their complaining a while ago already. That was again another proof of their problems.

Everyone had internalized the fact, that complaining wouldn't get them anywhere this time.

Germany was very worried. He thought about their situation while listening to the sounds of the forest and particularly of the enemy troops there ahead of them. Now that Sweden and Russia were handling a different case, only eighteen nations was protecting their lines. Some of them, like Canada, had already once been injured before and had later returned. Germany needed a new plan: when their fighting force was sadly steadily weakening, their positioning and tactical order wasn't valid anymore. Switzerland was still in his tree and the back-up group had someone stationed behind every trench, waiting if someone got hurt. But unlike in the beginning, when the action group had provided them assistance, now they had no one there to help. Currently only Finland and Latvia were there, with Italy as the messenger and the mildly injured Romano to help them. Hungary had permanently joined the action group so Finland was now the leading officer.

Germany registered now that Denmark and Belarus had returned to their positions beside him and were looking tenser than a while ago. Germany noticed he had tensed as well and subconsciously he also knew why. The first of their enemies were charging through the smoke the explosion had created. Germany returned to their current situation from his thoughts and readied his mind and gun to fight.

Before he could shoot the man who was diving into the bushes some ten meters ahead of him, the said man groaned and fell down, a hole of a bullet in his chest.

_Switzerland_, Germany understood quickly and glanced momentarily to the trees behind them, seeing of course no hint where the sniper was. Not wanting to make Switzerland do all the work, Germany turned to the battle anew and opened fire.

The nations soon noticed that this time they were overpowered by sheer numbers. Their enemy had probably been frustrated about the paperwork he had been given and the landmines or other traps the nations had set, and was planning to give them a proper payback. Only half an hour after the bombs had exploded, Germany ordered a retreat.

"To the ninth line! We must take advantage of the rocks in there!" he shouted to Denmark who had just ducked down with him to avoid a bullet rain. "We'll bring the wings closer to the center and retreat in pairs. Send a signal for the retreat plan C."

Denmark nodded and grabbed a hand grenade from his belt and threw it over his shoulder to buy himself some time, while Germany covered him. From the backside of his belt Denmark took three smaller bombs to his hand and threw the first towards the left wing, another to the right and the last straight ahead. When the bombs exploded, they spread a reddish smoke screen around them and as China and Japan noticed the smoke they threw their own smoke bombs as well. As soon as that happened Switzerland jumped down from his tree and began running towards their next trench before he'd be caught in the fight, passing by the back-up group that was preparing its own retreat. The smoke screen spread around the front of their trench and when nine bombs had all went off, every nation threw a hand grenade to the smoke, making a string of explosion sound inside the smoke.

With that, the nations scrambled up from their little a trench and hid to safe behind the protection mounds. Germany could hear coughing from inside the smoke beside the other infuriated shouts. He couldn't help but smile a little. These bombs were custom made by Korea who had been bored as he had been injured and hadn't been able to participate building the traps to the forests. Using the ingredients available he had planted something useful to the bombs they had already had: pepper.

Germany's smile vanished in an instant when he heard a frightened yelp from his left. One soldier had appeared from the smoke screen, having crawled closer and somehow avoided both the smoke and explosions. Now he had jumped up to dash the last meters to that separated him from them. Right in front of him was Poland who was still climbing up from the trench and had yelped in panic because currently he was in no position to defend himself.

Before Germany could do more than open his mouth to curse and lift his gun up to help Poland, Denmark jumped up from the trench right in front of the enemy soldier. With one swing of his axe he made an end of the man's dash, slicing two smaller trees in half while he was add it.

Denmark chuckled as he took his place beside Germany again after retreating to safe with Poland. "Oh, I've waited to do that."

Germany gave him a wry look.

.*** *** ***

Their enemy was using its own snipers again. And the nations learnt this the hard way.

"Finland!" Cuba called, appearing to the hideout of the medics. "Come quickly!"

A minute later Finland and Latvia dragged France away from the fighting range and Cuba returned to his post in the ninth line they had been protecting for an hour now.

Finland observed France's injures first time better and grimaced, turning to speak to Romano and Italy, while Latvia started treating the nation who had had a bullet fly straight into his stomach. "Romano, you go replace France in the line. Your hand is healthy enough for back-up duty." Southern Italy snorted and clearly wanted to object, but left anyway. Finland turned to the messenger. "Italy. Go tell Germany France has been shot and he needs immediate medical attention. Both Latvia and I will be leaving for a while and Romano will go replace France. Then go inform Switzerland there is a sniper who can clearly shoot inside the trench of the left wing and he should be taken care of. After that take all this information to Home. Okay?"

"Yes sir," Italy said, saluted and disappeared to the bushes, massaging his forehead his hand just hit. Finland turned back to take care of France, while Latvia readied a stretcher.

"Dear me, this is bad again," he mumbled.

France coughed and said, whispering. "Do forgive me."

"Don't talk if you like your life."

While Finland and Latvia took France back to the headquarters, Italy had managed to get to the center to speak with Germany and out of there without getting into immediate danger. If he had expertise in something it was fleeing. That is, if he really tried to and now he did. It took him a while to find Switzerland but when he did, their conversation was quick and short sentenced. Soon Italy found himself running towards the headquarters, the usual urge to slow down and maybe take a nap steadily haunting his brain.

_No no no_, he said to himself and made his legs keep up the pace. _Everyone's expecting me to be quick now. That's right! If I'll think something horrible is chasing me it'll be easier. What could be good? Maybe a –_

A hand grabbed his shoulder from behind.

Italy screamed out loud and tried to wiggle away from this sudden attacker, but the grip was too strong.

"No need to be so afraid, little one," a soft voice said behind him and Italy turned to look at the smiling face of Russia.

"Y–y–you can't scare me like that," Italy sobbed, but calming down. "That's not fair…"

Russia chuckled, wiping the remains of tears from Italy's cheeks and said, "I called your name, but you didn't listen. But Italy, dear, tell me: are you going Home now?" Italy nodded and Russia continued. "Before you do, I want you to turn around a little and go tell Germany something."

"What?" Italy asked, trying to look ready and alert.

Russia leant closer and smiled. "We're ready."

.*** *** ***

Sweden rested his back against a tree, playing with the knife in his hands. He waited for Russia to start. Germany had been informed and the fighters had started their retreat, now all he could do was wait and hope everything went well. And he really hoped this would work the way they wanted. Russia probably had right now his eyes (through binoculars) fastened to the forest to observe the situation, like he was supposed to. Sweden let his eyes wander along the sharp edge of the army knife between his fingers.

_This is a good knife_, he thought absentmindedly.

That second an explosion shook the forest, followed by three other as loud ones. Sweden's eyes sharpened and he tensed.

"H're we go," he said, grabbed the army knife to his hand and hit the tip of the blade against the tree trunk beside his ear. It cut one of the cords circling the tree in two and the sounds of new explosions ran through the forest: Russia's Operation Anastasia had started. Sweden sighed: he hated the name. Not that Russia would have cared about that. Operation Victoria would have been much better…

Sweden listened to his explosion to the end and waited for Russia's response. They had a set order, but if the situation called, Russia had said he would change it. So Sweden had to listen to the amount, and locations of the explosions to know exactly what cord he should cut next. He had never done anything like this. No matter how much their allies had assured they were just copying their technology, at least this was something Sweden hadn't really heard off before. At least the settings had been surprisingly easy: the whole system had taken them less than three hours, since the lay out had been planned out earlier.

The next explosions came and Sweden listened. _At least he's still keeping the order,_ he thought.

At his end of the cords, Russia was humming a childish tune he had just made up and letting his eyes wander the forest in search of his prey as Sweden's bomb string was making its destruction. Switzerland had promised to help him a bit and was sniping down the leftovers who avoided the explosions if he saw some. Germany's group was guarding their sides.

Russia followed some soldiers who looked suspicious enough to be officers. He smiled. Just as they had hoped, the enemy was slowing down and regrouping. They had noticed the mines and were thinking a way to get through. If they had been more of that type who charged forwards to a trapped area without thinking, Russia's plans would have very much failed. But these guys didn't seem to be eager to sacrifice ten to get two through, so Russia smiled a little wider and cut one of his cords in two.

The enemy couldn't surround them. They didn't - or at least they shouldn't - know the other attacking nation had been captured, but even if they knew, what could they do? The bombs their other enemy had set up on both side of their lines were still there, at some points there was even more of them now. Both armies were trapped between a line of bombs and other traps. If you could call a bunch of tired and injured nations an army. In any case, that fact made it much easier to Russia as he now had their enemy technically trapped from three sides.

Russia saw some soldiers retreating away, maybe to report the new situation. He clicked his tongue and in his mind halfheartedly apologized to Sweden. He was going to change the order a bit.

"Now it's from four sides," he said, striking his knife's tip to a cord. The bombs exploded further behind from the front lines of the enemy, stopping the retreaters who quickly took cover now. Russia chuckled to the faces the soldier he saw were making. They had just noticed that they had passed by several sets of cords before Russia had began: they were now perfectly trapped in the middle. Oh dear, Russia was enjoying this. Sweden's answer came and Russia was pleased to notice the other had noticed the change in order.

After a moment of this continuing an extra explosion startled Russia and, without him knowing it, made Sweden frown: it came too shortly after another and from a wrong direction. A short inspection revealed to Russia that some of the enemy soldiers had found the cords travelling through the underbrush and tried cutting them. A cord would make the bombs attached to itself explode, no matter where it was cut, so it didn't do much harm to the nations. Russia decided they should for now go with the original plan like nothing had happened. But there was one thing knocking the back of his mind as he continued. That little worry came true seven explosions later, when Sweden's answer suddenly didn't come anymore.

Russia's smile fell and he bit his teeth. Following a cord to a right direction would lead straight into either his or Sweden's hideouts. Either Sweden was taking a long break to think what cord to cut or they were dangerously nearing the worst case scenario. Russia sighed a little when the explosion finally came. At least Sweden was still there. Russia decided to continue for now, but the more cords he cut the clearer it was, that something was definitely going on with Sweden's end. The answers were too irregular.

"What's wrong, Russia?" Switzerland asked strictly when Russia was thinking what to do.

"Something is weird with Sweden," Russia answered, starting again to inspect their enemy's moves.

Switzerland gritted his teeth and growled a bit. "Isn't he weird in general? Send someone there to find out what's wrong. You can do the bombing meanwhile."

"The thing is," Russia answered and looked at the other, smiling, "only I know where he is and how to get there safely. So I'd have to go myself."

"You have got to be kidding me! What were you thinking?!"

Sweden indeed was in a bit of a trouble. He hadn't been able to count but at least ten enemy soldiers had found him by following the cords. He was hiding behind a rock with his gun ready and hoping Russia would stick with the plan and not come to see what kept him from keeping the rhythm. He could do this much. Russia's bombs exploded again and Sweden sighed.

_Left blank, downhill side, _he registered the sounds quickly and thought quickly as his enemies neared him._Third cord from the center upwards. _Sweden glanced around. He was too far from tree by now to use the knife. If not…

Dashing form a cover to another, Sweden threatened his pursuers with a string of bullets, hitting one of them for sure. When he was behind another rock, safe, Sweden took the knife's blade between his fingers and turned to get a bit past his safe zone. He threw the knife to the tree trunk where it sunk, cutting the right cord. Sweden duck back behind the rock and listened to the bullets snapping around him.

"If I were ya," he said out loud to his enemies, "I woul'n't hit that tree if ya don' wanna yar pals gettin' hurt."

.*** *** ***

Russia walked cautiously onwards. Sweden's hide-out was just up ahead, but since he wasn't sure what was going on, it didn't hurt to be careful. Technically this was currently their territory, but if the foreigners respected that, was another question. When Russia found what he was looking, he smiled, put his gun hanging on his shoulder and walked to Sweden who was sitting on the ground his back against a rock. A gun lied beside him on the moss. The tree with the cords was some ten meters behind him, all cords cleanly cut in two and the knife sticking out of the trunk.

"Got yourself a small problem I see," Russia said and came beside the other, glancing to the dead soldiers around. "I'm sorry, I forgot to arrange you back-up." He smiled.

Sweden huffed. " Right."

"That looks painful," Russia continued casually and crouched down. "How did this happen?"

Sweden glanced at his bloody feet and frowned. "I jump'd. To get here."

"Hmm…" Russia hummed in thought before taking his scarf off and tied it first around Sweden's ankle to prevent bleeding, then around the bullet wound on the foot.

Sweden frowned suspiciously and looked up. "Ya don' have a first-aid kit with ya?"

"Currently no," Russia answered.

"Enemy?"

"Dead. Most of them at least. The rest hid in our ninth trench and are quiet for now. It went great if you ask me, but could have gone better. There." Russia finished with the wound and looked up to Sweden. "Can you walk?" he asked but then laughed when Sweden gave him a dry glare, which actually wasn't so far from his usual look. "I guess you can't. Here." Russia offered his hand to help the other up and smiled. "Let's go, comrade."

.*** *** ***

The day was turning into evening. The nation's had a breather in their eighth line as the humans were regrouping and trying to come up with something new in the ninth. Sweden had been taken Home and received a bad-tempered welcome from Finland. Even when the plans had worked out this great, Germany was feeling down. They had again lost two battlers for serious injuries. France, who according to Finland needed a proper hospital to truly recover and Sweden, who couldn't walk.

_But,_ Germany thought, _it could have been far worse. I can't thank Russia and Sweden enough._

"Germany!" Denmark raised his voice, sounding astonished. "Look!"

As Germany saw many other nations move restlessly and look baffled as well, he turned around to see the forest between their and their enemy's line where Denmark was pointing. His jaw dropped. There walking closer to their trench alone and in wide open, was their main enemy: the foreign nation they had last seen on their third day in this place when he had come to their current headquarters to declare them a war. What was the most shocking thing was the huge white flag he was holding in his right hand. He stopped about forty meters away from their trench and set the pole of the flag to the ground beside him and called out for them with a loud voice.

"He wants to negotiate?" Poland said, unbelieving. "Oh come on."

"I'll go there," Germany said.

"It could be a trap," Japan warned and glanced worriedly. "I wouldn't trust him too much, white flag or not."

"I know," Germany said, nodding. "Finland." He turned to the medic who had come closer when the fuss had started. "Take Switzerland's spare sniping rifle and climb up to a tree with him. I want you two to pay attention for the possibility of a trap. Russia and Japan, come with me. You rest be on guard, we three can't take guns."

The nations spread to follow the commands, before the foreign nation got impatient waiting for them. Germany glanced around him.

"Does anyone have a white flag?" As a moment of silence followed, Germany frowned. "Please, where is Italy when I need him?"

"On the way to make a report Home." Denmark said, shrugging.

Germany sighed.

After a yet more silence, Belarus stepped forwards and handed Germany a handkerchief. It didn't make Germany look too sure. "Anything else?"

"My petticoat?" Belarus offered coldly.

"I'll…take the handkerchief."

After a while Germany, Russia and Japan rose up from the trench and began to walk their way to their enemy. Germany walked in the middle, holding Belarus' little white handkerchief in sight, slightly embarrassed by it compared to the big flag the foreigner had resting against his shoulder. Russia didn't seem to bother himself with little details so he just smiled, looking excited, while Japan tried to look as dignified and authoritative as possible to hide the fact he was nervous. Soon they reached their negotiating point and stopped a few meters away from their enemy. Behind them in the trench the nations held their breath and followed their moves, waiting for some kind of a trap to go off.

In the trees behind the trench Finland and Switzerland tried to set their sniping rifles into a position they could watch the conversation without any problems from afar and still perhaps shoot someone.

Switzerland huffed, irritated. "There are too many trees in here!"

"It's called a forest, Switzerland. Have you seen one before?" Finland asked casually.

"Shut up!" Switzerland barked back and then he turned his attention to the scene he had in his sight device. "Look, they've began."

The snipers weren't close enough to hear what the negotiators were saying and neither were nations in the trench, who could hear only a couple of words clearly. Still it was clear to everyone that the conversation had started.

"The Federal Republic of Germany, the Russian Federation, and the State of Japan," their enemy started almost casually. He bowed a little. "It's an honour. You're putting up a good fight."

"You noticed already?" Russia answered as casually and gave the other a smile. "Why, you're so smart."

The foreigner huffed slightly. "I was just wondering, when will you notice your resistance is futile?

"When will you notice that you're just throwing away human lives by challenging us?" Germany asked back. "You should have noticed by now how much better we are at this. Why do you continue to attack?"

"You're a nuisance. Simple, isn't it? The world is like that sometimes." Their enemy closed his eyes for a moment. "You can believe me when I say that you're of more use to me dead. Of course I knew killing you wasn't going to be easy, but every one of my soldiers knows how valuable you are to us as corpses. This is not your world. Killing you here should be possible now that there's no physical connection to your country. I don't know what pulled you here, but I'm grateful for the chance to kill you."

"What good does killing us do to you?" Germany asked. "A country doesn't disappear even if we were killed. As a nation yourself you should know that."

The foreigner nodded. "But it's you and only you we're able to connect to via magic. Your absence means no information about the specific country."

"I see." Japan talked for the first time. "But even though your reasons may be true and it is not like I can't understand, what you're doing is completely unreasonable."

"Truly," their enemy said dryly. "Now let's stop the chit-chat and let me say what I came to talk about. With the show you put up today, I have lost my temper with you. I'm going to give you one last chance to surrender."

"If that's all you have to talk about, this conversation is over," Germany said strictly.

"Listen to what I have to say." The other raised his hand, asking for silence. "I can't use heavy artillery here, which I think you've noticed by now. But I figured, if it's strong enough even this land won't be able resist."

"What do you mean?" Germany asked quickly, suddenly on his toes. He didn't like the sound of this and neither did the two beside him.

"State of Japan," the foreigner turned to talk to Japan only. "My only current source of weaponry information is from the United States of America a little after the second World War of your world." Germany shifted and looked at Japan, but their enemy didn't seem to bother with him. "I'm sure you have heard of nuclear weapons." That wasn't a question.

Japan went completely white.

"You cannot be serious," Germany said quietly to their enemy who gave them a bragging smile.

"You think?"

"Do you even know what those things do?" Germany asked, raising his voice and stepped a forwards. "You can't do that. Have you lost your mind?"

"Hardly," the other answered simply.

"Stop it..." Japan said, shivering slightly, but visibly. "You don't know what it is like. You have no idea how horrible it is...so stop it."

Japan was almost in a shock so Germany signalled Russia to take care of him, just in case.

The foreigner continued. "I know. A horrible power..." he said and turned to leave, keeping his white flag up. "Think about it, Federal Republic of Germany. If you surrender I won't drop an atomic bomb to this place and you may live working under me. I don't think it is a bad option for you. Consider it for a while; I'll give you one day. Well, I'm not going to stop attacking while waiting though," he added, partly talking to himself. "I'm too mad at you."

Germany bit his teeth and looked after the nation as he walked further away by every second, but he had nothing he could say back at that moment. Before he had a chance to think up a good reply, their enemy talked again.

"Oh, and one more thing," the foreigner said and walked a little further before stopping. "Don't you think it's disrespectful to come to negotiate with three of your side when I'm alone? That's three against one."

Germany squinted, but kept his voice steadily cold. "I don't want to hear that from you."

The foreign nation answered and raised his white flag high up. "True. But three people, come on." Then, in a wide circle, he flung his flag down, signalling a gunshot to flash horribly in the forest that had for a moment been comfortably quiet.

The foreigner smiled. "With this it's two."

* * *

A/N: I have problem: all my OCs are too similar. And I'm not good at writing them: whatever I do with them I can't think them as interesting people in the end. :/ And it seems that because of them, I've left you in a cliffhanger again. I'm sorry, but I really enjoy it. As an apology I'll tell you that in the next chapter, one of the injured nations is going to make a comeback. Anyway, I'm grateful you read this:

thank you so much to all of you.

**Wings of Avalon**: Thank you for this chapter again. I promise I'll try harder with the next.


	14. 13 The Repositioning Chapter

**13. The Repositioning Chapter**

**…In which everything changes for the better _and_ for the worse**

Finland pressed a cloth against the bleeding wound on Germany's chest. The rest of the nations were around them, silently waiting for someone to say something, yet they were all too angry to talk. Only Liechtenstein was with Finland by Germany's side, trying to do her best as a medic. She was the only one crying so far. Finland added a new cloth to prevent the bleeding and continued glancing from Germany to his own hands.

But the blood didn't stop streaming.

No one could have prevented it. After the gunshot the falling of the white flag had called, Russia and Japan had lingered their eyes at their enemy in shock, knowing by heart and seeing from the corner of their eyes, that Germany had been hit. That same moment Germany went limb from the flashing pain on his chest and until his back hit the moss, none of the nations did a thing.

Russia had possibly saved Japan's life in that next moment by forcefully grappling him down behind a tree, away from the next gunshot. It had taken all the support the nations in the trench could give to get the three negotiators away from the open. Their little white flag floated downwards where Germany had let it go and landed onto a sprig of a low bush. It still was there.

The only good thing there was in this situation was that thanks to Switzerland's almost acrobatic maneuvers to get into a good position, they had managed to hurt their enemy nation. Neither Switzerland nor Finland had been in a position to shoot him, but Switzerland had been decisive enough to instantly move from one branch to another, take a new stance, and shoot. But that hadn't been enough to kill the foreign nation, about that both snipers were sure. It, together with all the other furious gunshots the nations had sent into the forest had been enough, however, to stop the humans from attacking for a moment.

But that was all the good there was.

Finland bit his teeth in frustration and looked up to shout to the evening sky above. "Perkele!"

.*** *** ***

A while later, when Finland, Liechtenstein and Australia had taken Germany away, Russia gathered all the officers to the centre of the lines.

"Well," he asked, almost casually. "Who's going to take Germany's place? I'm not, just so you know."

"What happened there?" Denmark asked and hit his axe's helve to the ground, irritated. "What kind of a guy shoots against a white flag?"

"He..." Japan said and clutched his upper arms. "He's going to use an atomic bomb if we won't surrender."

"What did you say?" China asked, unbelieving. "We cannot surrender, so what could we do?"

"First we need a commander," Russia insisted.

Switzerland turned the rifle on his lap into a more comfortable position. "Why is that?"

"We need someone to say the last word," Russia explained calmly.

"That is not all," China said. "We need to rethink our positions. After today, our numbers are too few to support both wings. Germany, Sweden and France are all unable to fight."

"The enemy doesn't seem eager to attack head-on before our answer," Japan said. "No doubt they will keep reminding us about their existence, but they won't sacrifice lives when they have practically given us no way out but surrendering."

Denmark sighed slowly. "Like we needed any remindin'."

For moment no one said anything. They kept remembering Finland's words before he had left.

_"I'm not some kind of a sorcerer. Germany will die. I may be able to keep him alive for a while, given his own strength and willpower, but I'm not going to lie to you: he will die. And we __should__ better get home before that."_

"Could you be our next commanding officer, Denmark?" China asked after a little silence.

"No can do," Denmark answered immediately, shaking his head.

"Why not, mister second-in-command?" Russia asked kindly.

"Ye can't seriously be giving me so much responsibility?" Denmark pointed out. "Ye know I jes want to attack all out. I _don't _wanna sit thinkin' up strategies and positioning and send someone else there to have fun. Second-in-command is jes fine."

"If I am okay…" China proposed and raised his hand. "I could think up something."

"Excellent," Russia said, smiling and looking genuinely happy. "Objections, anyone?"

"None. Then please, China," Japan said and shifted, crossing his fingers. "Let us do something about this together then."

China nodded and looked very thoughtful for a short moment. Soon enough he nodded to himself and looked up. "I think the first thing we must do is to get in contact with Norway and find out how much time does he still need to complete the spell. Then...I say we need Sealand."

.

**Later that evening…**

Sealand ran through the forest. He clutched a map in his little hand and a compass in the other. He had an important assignment.

_"Listen Sealand," China said and crouched down to give the micro nation a map. "I want you to run and this time, give it all you got. You must be back tomorrow. This is not just any order. It is a very important mission and you have to get it done. We are counting on you."_

Sealand stopped on a top of a hill and bent to his knees out of breath. Then he straightened quickly and shook his head, telling himself to keep going.

"Everyone's counting on me," Sealand said to himself and continued his way down the hillside. "I'm on a mission now. I can't rest." He kept talking to himself as he ran through the rustling underbrush.

.*** *** ***

Norway stared at the fire outside the Home hut. Estonia stood a little behind him, listening to the conversation between Norway and China. Fire burned lazily on the pieces of wood before them.

"I see," Norway said quietly. "I think that counts as a reason enough to stop me from workin'."

"How long you still need?" China asked again. "You get it done by tomorrow, right?"

Norway immediately shook his head. "Absolutely not. I still need at least two days."

"Eh? No no no, now you are kidding me, right?" China said, unbelieving.

"I originally said six days at least, didn' I," Norway reminded and looked coldly at China.

"Yes exactly," China started to raise his voice a bit. "Tomorrow is the sixth day since you started. You're saying you need more? In this situation?"

Norway frowned. "At least, China, _at least _six days. I still need two, so that makes it seven."

"Norway," China said strictly. "We are at our limit already. You're telling us to keep fighting for two days more? We have an atomic bomb threat on us already."

Norway snapped a stick in two to make China shut up. "Don' make it sound like I don' care." Norway stood up and Estonia opened his mouth to say something, looking worried, but Norway continued. "I know how hard ye've been workin'. I was driven out of my room to make space for the wounded, ye know. Ye're giving me time to get us all home, that's what Germany decided on the first day this all started. An' now that Germany is lying almost dead on the table there in the hut because there're not enough beds for the wounded anymore. Ye think I feel nothin' about it?"

China looked guilty. "No, no I do not think that.

"Just like ye've had tough time," Norway continued, "I have slept hardly at all this whole time to meet to yer expectations. Do ye know how motivatin' it is to look at a wounded after another appears in the hut? I can tell, very motivatin'."

"I understand," China said hurriedly. "I did not mean to be rude, Norway, really. I am sorry."

Norway didn't look anyone to the eyes and started to walk back towards the hut. "Don't ye dare to think I'm jes playin' here while ye're at war. I said seven days, so two more days it is. Sure I can make it less, if ye don' mind someone or some body part of yers left behind or take the risk that we might not make it at all. Stop making it sound so easy, all of ye. I haven't got enough power to do it twice if we screw up. I'm startin' to wonder if I've enough to do it once. I may not be holdin' a gun, but I'm fightin' jes like ye are. Ye have any idea how much–"

"SHUT UP!" A sudden shout stopped Norway's rant as fast as the door of the hut slammed wide open right in front of him. Norway was so close to the door when it opened he had to jerk backwards to avoid getting his nose broken and his hair waved in the gust of air.

It was so sudden everybody else jerked as well, door or not.

"Shut. Up," Iceland said again and breathed heavily, taking support from the door frame.

Norway stared at him eyes wide open and couldn't get a word out of his mouth.

Estonia survived the surprise first. "Iceland?"

"Brilliant!" Netherlands cheered beside the hut's corner where he had been standing all along, listening to the conversation silently. "One person more awake."

But awake or not, Iceland didn't actually look very healthy and he seemed to have trouble standing on his own. To highlight this, Finland popped his head out of the hut door beside Iceland.

"Ice. I told you not to overdo it. And everyone, don't shout: we have sick people here," the head medic lectured strictly. "Ice, that goes for you too. And you really should lie down."

"Mind your own business," Iceland said very grumpily and took a shaking step forward towards the still gaping Norway.

"Ooh, someone got up with a foul mood," Korea commented, being one of the few people who had come closer to greet Iceland.

"How could I stay quiet when you're being so pathetic?" Iceland asked and looked Norway deep into eyes. "Stop complaining and do what you have to. You're annoying, brother."

Finland smiled and turned to return inside.

Norway closed his eyes for a while and then opened them, smiling slightly and looking more tired than he had shown so far. "Ice."

"Yes?" Iceland answered bluntly. "Did it take you this much time to recognize me?"

Norway took Iceland into his arms and hugged him. "Listen to Finland and rest for a bit more." Then he let go and stepped past Iceland. "China. Thirty eight hours. Startin' now. Let's go, Estonia." Norway disappeared inside.

Remaining time to departure: 1 day, 13 hours, 59 minutes, 56 seconds

.*** *** ***

Later that evening, Norway's actions changed. Instead of locking himself inside a tiny room or, in the lack of appropriate room, demanding silence in the biggest one, he exited the hut with a huge flock of cryptic marked papers on his arms, Estonia following a few steps behind. The papers were notes that were the conclusion of their work so far. Without explaining anyone a thing despite some curious glances, the two started working on the phase two of Norway's spell.

"Well then, as planned, we'll use the hut as the center," Norway said and handed all the notes to Estonia, taking out his pen to make some more notes into an unused paper. "To let you know, it's from here on it gets difficult."

"I could have guessed," Estonia answered simply, not sounding the tiniest bit surprised.

In the front lines the battle had continued. But like some of the nations had anticipated, the enemy soldiers were clearly given an order not to risk their lives too badly in the current situation. No one had got hurt. That was a little brighter spark in their somewhat gloomy atmosphere. In fact, to their enemy the option of "not risking their lives" meant keeping quiet. Despite China's efforts of trying to keep their remaining fighters calm, the nations were currently mostly furious.

In the light of new plans and strategies by their new commanding officer and the all the other officers, Finland had permanently joined and Korea rejoined the action group, increasing their available fighters to nineteen. China's plans included dividing all the remaining nations into pairs that took care of their respective sections of the lines. Instead of curving the wings towards the enemy line like before, they now curved slightly backwards, protecting their sides. The commander was still positioned in the center, forming the only group of three with Denmark and Belarus.

Furthermore, China had formed the rear fighting team to protect their backs. This group consisted of the injured nations who were healthy enough to carry a weapon: Lithuania, Sweden, Belgium and Netherlands. Their primary job was not to fight but to keep up a guard that no one would try to sneak up from behind. Switzerland had joined them for the night as it was too dark for sniping. As Sealand was away, their only remaining messenger was Italy, who had been ordered not to run around carelessly. He was also positioned to be with the rear fighting team, being the one to get the help if needed.

With Finland leaving the back-up group, the lead of the team had passed on to Liechtenstein and Seychelles. From the two, Seychelles was in charge of the injured and Liechtenstein in charge of the food supplies and Home defense. In addition to ensuring that they wouldn't be attacked from behind, the officers had now prepared for the fact that as the enemy wasn't going to charge head on against them anymore, this was the best time for them to do sneak attacks and assassinations. For that reason, every person available at Home was now carrying a gun. To do her own part in this, Liechtenstein had assigned America and Latvia to guard the surroundings from the outside.

From what anyone knew, China was nothing but satisfied with the plans he had come up with.

To the nations, that night felt the longest of all they had spent in the foreign dimension. As the sun went down, their enemy quieted down and a murderous silence spread to the forest. No gunshots were discharged and no grenades or mines exploded. The forest was unnaturally quiet after all the almost continuous fighting. The sky was cloudy and dark, showing no light to the bottom of the forest, and the air was heavy like before a storm. No one dared to light a fire or speak. Everyone stayed put and listened to the silence, waiting for an unwanted guest to pop up behind the tree any moment. When the sunlight had entirely disappeared, the forest became still, silent and dark.

It was in that kind of night, without knowing the exact time, when Poland, one of the nations keeping guard on the front, noticed something in the forest that didn't belong there.

"Korea… what is that?" he asked his pair casually while gazing at the dark forest, frowning.

"Huh?" Korea asked back and rose a bit up to see the forest. "What? Oh that-" his eyes spread. "What _is _that?"

"Make way," Poland said quickly and dashed past Korea along their trench. It didn't take him long to reach the center where China was. "Hey, China," Poland called, but the next moment he saw that China had also already seen what he had. In the forest some thirty meters away from them, burned a silent blue flame, seemingly floating in the air.

"Hmm…" Russia hummed in deep thought, while standing upright in their trench and gazing towards the flame. "I wonder what it is."

"Idiot!" China hissed and glared at him. "Get down, or you will get shot at any time!"

When Russia didn't obey immediately, Poland directed a kick behind his knees and received a soft "ah?" when the bigger nation fell down against the back of the trench. While Poland was at it, he landed a hit straight on Denmark's face, to wake up the only nation who had the guts to sleep in this situation. He then immediately regretted both of these actions, when both Denmark and Russia where breathing to his face.

"That bloody hurt, dammit," Denmark growled, holding his nose.

"That hurt, you know," Russia chirped dangerously at the same time.

Japan broke the tension that strangled Poland more second by second, by coming into sight behind the corner. "China," he started, but China gestured him to quiet down, knowing that Japan had come with the same report as Poland.

Together they all watched as another blue flame lit up in the forest ahead of them and was soon followed by a third one.

"Inform everyone," China said calmly. "Until we know what those lights are, no one is allowed to make any big moves, okay?"

"Do we inform headquarters?" Denmark asked. "Norway might know."

"I wouldn't send anyone out," Russia said and pointed behind them, on the other side of the protection mounds. There burning was yet another flame that softly flattered in an inexistent wind. "Not until we know what they are and can we just go by them."

"I don't think our enemy is doing these," Japan shared his mind. "The fires seem to burn deep in their territory as well."

China bit his lip. "What on Earth is this?

The same wondered Estonia in the front yard of their Home hut, while he was being guided through the herds of floating blue will-o'-the-wisps that gathered around them. He could know they were there even with his palm covering his eyes and only Norway's hand guiding him towards the hut, where according to Norway it was safe. Norway himself walked through the field shadowing his eyes with his arm, but keeping his eyes open, attached to the ground to see where they were going. The will-o'-the-wisps stranded slightly away from them, but kept their circle tight.

"Foolish fire," Norway mumbled when his hand finally touched the wooden wall.

The door opened ahead of them Liechtenstein poked her head out. "Norway, what are these things? Is this your doing?"

"Get back inside," Norway ordered and reached the door, pushing Liechtenstein back. "They're will-o'-the-wisps. I didn' create them. Someone or somethin' else did."

"What do you mean "some_thing_"? Why? How?" America asked, pointing his gun out of the window, waiting to shoot the flames if they did anything more suspicious. He and Latvia had come back to the hut to report nothing was wrong a moment ago, just before something started to go wrong. They could thank their good luck for that.

"I dunno," Norway answered and closed the door as Estonia took his hand away from his eyes. "Don' look at them. If ye see 'em too close, that might be the last thing ye do. Luckily they're not hostile. Yet. Guns won' help."

America backed away from the window looking slightly terrified. "Can't you do something about them?"

"He perhaps could," Estonia answered. "But that would be waste of magic. Isn't that right, Norway?"

Norway nodded silently and looked around the people in the hut. "Someone must go to the front… and warn China about these fires. They might've appeared there as well. Let's jes hope nothin' has happened already…"

"Then I'll go," Finland reported in immediately. "I should be joining the action group anyway. I actually should already be there," he added, laughing nervously. "I just kinda couldn't let go of things here."

"Don' go alone," Norway said immediately.

"Then I'll go," said a quiet voice from the corner and Canada stood up. "I should be there by now as well."

Norway nodded. "Then c'mere. I'll explain how to deal with them."

Norway's instructions were short and simple. Finland and Canada listened carefully, but avoiding the risks didn't sound too hard. No one quite understood what the risks were from Norway's explanation; they sounded scarcely logical and mostly mythological instead. Norway didn't seem to care if they actually understood how it worked as long as they understood it was dangerous.

"Well, we will be going then," Finland said brightly like they would be going on a tea party, took his gun and stepped to the door. "Come on Canada."

"Ye sure ye got it handled?" Norway asked doubtfully one more time, frowning at Finland's cheerfulness.

Finland chuckled at his tone. "Don't worry, Norway. We will tell China your news in flash. And as long as we follow your instructions and some common sense, we'll be okay, right?" Finland asked and carefully opened the door, stepping outside.

"It's your common sense that worries me…" Norway mumbled, raising a hand to massage his forehead. Finland didn't seem to hear.

"Finland, Canada," Iceland called out to stop the departing two and stepped outside after them. "Here – take this with you. So you won't get separated." He handed Canada a long rope, then immediately stepping back to return inside. "Be careful."

Canada smiled. "Of course."

* * *

A/N: Hello, dear readers. I'm sorry I'm slow again. (I had a weird phase for Kingdom Hearts in November and December so I wrote 80 pages of KH instead of writing Hetalia. =u=b). But hey, see? No cliffhanger. I'm improving. I think...

Perkele (Finnish) = a swearing word that's hard to translate. Perkele is an old God of the dead and is now one of the strongest swearing words in Finnish (and we have a lot of them).

Hope this isn't getting too weird. Don't worry, everything will be explained eventually.

Reviews:

**kshima91: **What a great timing to post a comment. =D I hope you're still around. Thank you for the compliments, really, thank you. I appreciate that you didn't just read and leave. I'm trying my best to keep the characters in character (which is why I actually don't like writing about characters I feel I can't keep in character, like America, Poland and Italy). Anyway, I'm happy you found me and that you have liked the story so far. I hope I can keep you interested to the end. No worries, I'm not going to abandon this: I'm just slow. =) (Should I relly be smiling at that...?) Also, those "noticable differences" are my desperate attempts to make the OCs seem different. XD

I'm also very surprised to find more and more people saying that this story is original. I guess it is then, I have to believe you. =)

Wings: thank you again. (btw, I sent you a pm after you sent the beta'd chapter: did you not get it or just left it unanswered? I waited for a few months.)


	15. 14 The Reasoning Chapter

**14. The Reasoning Chapter**

**…in which right and just collide**

The blue light was illuminating the forest and Switzerland didn't like it at all. The time kept crawling forward and the amount of things he wanted but didn't dare to shoot was increasing unsteadily and yet undoubtedly. Because nothing had really happened, Lithuania, who worked as the leading officer of the rear guard, had ordered everyone to just follow the situation for now. Will-o'-the-wisps weren't actually the safest thing to go explore from what anyone knew from fairytales.

And the time went by, minute by minute. The light that wasn't warm or welcoming kept illuminating the forest in a way that only created more shadows for them to guard.

"Someone's comin'," Sweden said suddenly and to everyone's surprise instead of aiming to the direction they were supposed to guard, he turned around swiftly, pointing the gun to the direction of their front line.

The others followed his example. They took their guns to stance and waited as a sound of someone crawling and sneaking closer to them grew stronger. Belgium and Netherlands stayed in guard to the other direction, but all the others followed the sound with their gun points.

Switzerland pushed Italy into better hiding and spoke up. "Password?"

The sounds stopped immediately. After a moment, an uneasy voice squeaked back from the dark forest. "Did we have one?"

Switzerland broke his stance. "Correct answer. You may come, Denmark."

A short while later the second-in-command came properly in sight. "Jesus, Switzerland, don' scare people like that. I really thought I had forgotten somethin'…"

"Wouldn' be new," Sweden mumbled.

But Denmark just gave him a smile before turning back to Lithuania and Switzerland. "It's orders from China," Denmark said. "No one is allowed to move or do anythin' to the fires until we know what they are. If they won' do anythin' to us, the better. We clear?"

"That sounds exactly what we have been doing already. We are clear," Switzerland nodded in return but then glared from Denmark to the forest. "And despite the fires, you still just crawled past all of them. I do hope you at least had permission."

"It was an order," Denmark corrected. "Someone had to tell ye, and I volunteered."

"Are you planning to go back as well?" Netherlands asked. He nodded towards the blue fires between the front and rear. There was less between than around them, but too much for their liking anyway. It had already been almost an hour since the first ones had appeared. "There's one lighting up again."

"Of course I have to. Crawlin' under them seems to work fine," Denmark said and turned already. "Sve, dear, don't you overdo it, okay?" he wished over his shoulder to Sweden who gave him a long stare, which went unnoticed in the dark.

Denmark was stopped by a sharp 'shush' from the direction of Belgium. "Someone's coming," She whispered and leant more down to the moss.

This time all guns pointed to the forest outside China's formation. Lithuania raised a finger to his lips and passed the sign on to everyone. And as they waited, a new blue flame lit up silently somewhere on their right, behind a tree where no one could see.

And the time went by, second by second.

Remaining time to departure:1 day, 5 hours, 29 minutes, 14 seconds

**…A while earlier**

Iceland lingered in the door way until Finland and Canada had disappeared into the will-o'-wisp herd, having tied the rope around their respective arms to ensure they wouldn't stray from each other even while not looking.

"Ice," Norway said from the inside. "We don' want them to get in. Close the door."

"Will... will they be okay?" Latvia asked nervously and glanced outside to the clearing around them from the window. The yard was full of the blue fires that had come from nowhere.

"I'm sure they will," Liechtenstein said, smiling softly, returning to do now what she had been doing before the fires had started appearing: tending Germany. "Let's just trust the two."

Iceland had taken a half a step inside, ready to close the door, but had then stopped to glance at the edge forest that could be seen far behind the will-o'-wisps.

"Ice," Norway repeated, urging the other to come inside.

Iceland moved slightly in a way that indicated he was going to obey but hesitated. "I hope Sealand is okay."

Estonia, who had come beside him to close the door himself because Iceland had taken his time, froze. "Oh no, I forgot him... Norway we must-"

"We won' do a thing," Norway answered immediately and received unbelieving stares from the nations in room. Norway silenced the arising objections quickly by speaking up again. "We dunno where he is or where to look. And who'd go? We've too little people here as it is and I won' send more people to wander out there. Sealand is on his own."

"Weren't we all going to go back together from here?" America argued back and raised his gun. "If there is a possibility that someone needs help, we must naturally go and save him. I'll go and look for him!"

"You are not going anywhere," a new voice joined the conversation from the bench beside the back wall. "Calm down, America. Norway is right." Austria stood up as slowly as his injured leg required and sighed. "Right now, the ones in the trenches are in graver danger than Sealand is and Germany closer to losing his life than Finland and Canada. We must accept that there simply are things our resources won't allow us to accomplish. If you want to be of help, America, help girls to treat wounded."

"But..." America started. "I need something more heroic to do. This is just frustrating."

"This has been frustrating to all of us for days now," Austria said sounding almost cold. "Why cannot you accept the situation?"

"Ask our chieftains," Hong Kong said from his sitting spot on the floor and looked between Liechtenstein to Seychelles. "They're the ones to decide, right? If we won't have discipline when we decide things, I dunno know why we have captains at all."

Seychelles looked surprised when someone directly treated her as a captain, but Liechtenstein just lowered her eyes back to Germany and clutched the edge of the table.

"Close the door," she said quietly to Estonia who stood on the doorway, hand ready on the door handle. "We'll take priority of the people inside."

America huffed, irritated, but lowered his gun when no one stood up with him. Iceland finally stepped away from the doorstep so Estonia could finally pull the door close, which he then did.

But Norway suddenly jerked in shock and he started towards the door. "Estonia," he uttered a quick, loud warning.

Estonia jumped in surprise and looked up, realizing too late that it was the very thing he shouldn't have done. The will-o'-wisp flapped in front of his face like in strong wind, the light reflecting from Estonia's widened eyes. The blue fire flashed once before it reached its flames towards Estonia's face like a snake; crawling inside his head from eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. By then, Norway reached him and grabbed Estonia just as the other's legs gave in. Estonia slumped onto the floor, only Norway's arms keeping him upright.

"Estonia!" many nations called in shock and hesitated to come closer.

Immediately after grabbing him, Norway raised his free hand and spread his fingers over Estonia's face. A sharp greenish light circled down from fingertips like threads, but Norway stopped them before they touched Estonia. He bit his teeth and his form shivered slightly as he watched the last blue flaming lizard like things disappear inside Estonia and burn the out light from the Baltic's eyes. Slowly, the small green threads returned to Norway's fingers and he let his hand fall.

Someone finally moved as Latvia stumbled down on his knees beside his neighbor, calling his name, while Norway laid the body from his arms to floor and rose up. "Norway," Latvia continued and turned to look at the Nordic. "What happened to him? Why did you stop? Couldn't... couldn't you have saved him?"

Seychelles crouched down beside the Baltics as well and leant down over Estonia to see what had happened. She shivered. "N... Norway?"

"I could have tried savin' him," Norway answered quietly and turned away. "But I've never done that before...that would've taken too much magic."

"So you just... let that flame do its thing?" America judged. "When he was right there and you could have saved him, you didn't do a thing because that's "waste of magic"? How is that "_waste_"?! How can you care about some magic when there's someone's life at stake?!"

"That's exactly why I didn' do anythin'!" Norway shouted back. "I'm in charge of lives of almost forty people here! Would ye rather have stayed here longer waitin' for my magic to replenish! I couldn' have done both!" He hit his fist against the thin air in frustration. "I'm too weak!" Norway took a deep breath and faced the wall, trying to calm down a bit. "There was no guarantee I could've saved him. It's up to me to take ye all home. Even if I had managed to stop the foolish fire, that'd have meant at least a day more we spent on this place. Which would've lead at least to Germany's death... if not others and many more would've gotten injured. I can still try saving Estonia when we get back. But until that, he'll be beyond any help. ...I'm sorry."

"Saving what's in front of you comes first!" America insisted in a fury and stood before Norway. "We could have made up something together to make up for it later! How can you just sacrifice him?"

"Quiet down, America!" Austria raised his voice. "Norway said there is still a chance Estonia can be saved afterwards. But nothing will save Germany if we take longer to get home. It might seem inhuman and unjust, but Norway did right."

The Nordic himself turned to look at Estonia one more time, his usual expressionless mask on his face again and you couldn't read what exactly was he thinking.

"Norway..." Seychelles sobbed up to him and held Estonia's hand. "He's not breathing."

Norway turned his head away. "I know."

Latvia took his friend to his hands and raised the lifeless Estonia to his arms, shivering, lines of tears staining his face. Then he cried, letting his voice raise up to the ceiling as a suppressed shout of raw pain of loss.

.

**Present**

When the sounds were close, Switzerland acted. When the bushes in front of them rustled and the slowly could see human shapes in the woods he – despite Lithuania's orders to stay put and wait – sprang up and swiftly attacked the closest newcomer.

"No!" Lithuania whispered loudly, but too late as Switzerland was already gone and sounds of wrestling and struggling broke the silence of the forests. Lithuania turned to the person beside him. "Netherlands, show light."

Some other members of the rear guard stood a little up too, getting ready to help Switzerland. Netherlands managed to swiftly carry out the orders and pointed a light after Switzerland to reveal what was going on.

Switzerland was on his knees over a human form that revealed to be Finland. Both nations had a barrel of a gun on their foreheads, ready to shoot the suspicious attacker. Canada laid forgotten nearby, having fallen over as Finland had tried to put up a fight while being tied to the other.

"Not bad," Finland said and smiled. "China's plan seems to be working a bit."

"Don't sneak up on us like that," Switzerland huffed and took the gun away. "I could have killed you."

"I wasn't aware we were this close to you. It is a bit hard to navigate here."

All three nations were helped up from the moss and greeted welcome to the front. Finland and Canada then shared Norway's instructions about the fires and told everyone a bit about their journey through the forest.

"There weren't any fires between here and Home," Canada told them, a bit surprisingly. "There were many near the hut, but they decreased steadily after that and by the time of the first trench, there were none anymore."

"When we got close here, they appeared again," Finland continued. "But this is nothing compared to headquarters."

"There's more between the eighth and ninth line," Denmark smirked, happy to see Finland. "Ye come back with me to see China?"

"Yup," Finland answered and smiled. "We must hear where we are wanted."

"I'm sorry for the commotion," Canada said and nodded to the rear fighters when the three got ready to leave.

The trip back to the trench didn't took as long as it had taken Denmark to get away from there as now they knew that crawling under the will-o'-wisps wasn't necessary. China was pleased to know that the fires wouldn't do anything unless they didn't get too near them and that he had finally gotten his two last fighters to join the line. The two got appointed to the former right wing to form the last pair to join the action group. A message was passed along the line to both of its ends: stay away from the fires, don't do anything to them and even if they appeared closer themselves, never try getting a closer look or touch of them.

The fires kept lighting the forest until the sun rose. With sunlight, they disappeared as silently as they had appeared. No one attacked the nations that night. And in the light of the morning the nations understood why: their enemy was gone. At some point during the night and earlier morning, the enemy troops had retreated no doubt to not get caught in the blast of an atomic bomb. While the nations were also pleased for not having to fight, they also still had the problem of their enemy demanding them to surrender. China rounded up all nations who had more experience in warfare situations like this and they held a long argument of what to do.

No solution was found.

Only one thing they all agreed to. The same they had decided the first time the war had been declared: they would never surrender. But the nuclear bomb had to be avoided at any cost. They could flee to one of their allies' countries, but that would make the homecoming perhaps impossible and Germany would no doubt die. Some proposed further negotiations with the enemy nation, but that had been rejected as most nations saw it as a futile effort and even less wanted to have anything to do with negotiations after the last time. One other old idea was also thrown out: assassination. That idea got a lot more votes behind it, but if it would it stop the bomb, they weren't sure. There was also no proof that the assassination could succeed and would they have time for it: they had no idea where to start looking for their target.

During the morning the front was also delivered the news about Estonia to everyone's horror. The already gloomy, deep mood sank even more. Despite of all their efforts, the war had now cost them a comrade. After many hours the meeting was postponed for everyone to think of things on their own. Angry, frustrated, and sad the nations scattered to carry out other orders. Some guarded the trench, a group of healthier nations was sent to the ninth and tenth line to make sure no enemy was anymore present, and everyone was given an order to rest and eat, gather up strength and think. China himself went Home, leaving Denmark in charge of the front. On his way back with Russia and Japan, they ran into Latvia who had been coming to the front with news as Italy was away.

Sealand had come back.

Remaining time to departure: 22 hours, 47 minutes, 20 seconds

"Ye owe us an explanation," Norway said indifferently to their female ally who looked up and turned to him after angrily swearing to the fire about their situation. Norway clarified when no immediate response came. "I want an explanation to three things. Why did the will-o'-wisps appear? Will they appear again? And are those things the reason England can't use magic?"

Mrs. Ally sighed. "Okay, the first two are easy. It's best you think of them as warnings. To explain it in layman's terms, the magic on this land reacted on your spell preparations and came to protect its territory."

"So why did they appear near the trenches as well?" Liechtenstein asked.

"Probably to object to all the mines you've used."

"You're making that magic thing sound like a living being," America noted, glancing nervously around again, like waiting for some magical being to pop up behind a bush and announce it was irritated.

Their ally nodded. "Thinking of it like that is not a bad idea at all. But you are slightly incorrect. The magic itself isn't exactly alive. Okay, that aside, as to will they appear again… I'd say it's definitely going to happen. As long as you, Kingdom of Norway, continue on your spell, they'll surely appear every night."

Norway squinted. "I was afraid it was like that…is there a way to prevent it?"

"Certainly," Mrs. Ally answered and snorted, sounding almost amused. "Didn't I say? Stop the preparations. Or if you want a more efficient way," she said, took her gun from her belt and raised it to point at Norway's head without any warning. "You'll just have to die."

For a moment she was silent but then she smiled at the four guns she now had pointing on her own head. "Good reaction," she praised Liechtenstein, America, Iceland and Hong Kong who had raised their weapons immediately to protect their magician. Norway didn't even bat an eye.

"You wanna die or what?" Hong Kong asked and holstered his handgun as the ally put her firearm away.

"Okay, perhaps that wasn't the cleverest thing to do," admitted and turned to look back at Norway. "To the last question I can't really answer for sure. I can just guess that his magic's type collides too much with the one we use here. So they kinda block each other, okay? Perhaps if he spent more time here he'd come able to use some."

"Unfortunately he's not going to stay," Iceland said.

"I'd prefer as well he didn't, okay?" the woman replied and frowned. "The sooner you are all out of here, the sooner the things will return to normal."

"We are planning on leaving alright."

Everyone raised their heads and turned to see China coming closer with Russia and Japan.

"Thank you for coming," China said and stopped beside Norway, nodding to their ally. "I believe we have not spoken with each other like this. I am China. The current commanding officer."

"Oh, the People's Republic of China," Mrs. Ally greeted and stood up. "I have no link with you so I don't know much about you I'm afraid."

"Skip formalities, you two, let's get to the point," Russia urged cheerfully and clapped his hands together. "So: we have a bigger problem and we need you."

"So I heard from your messenger," their ally said and her expression turned dark.

"Where is Sealand?" China remembered and looked around. "We need to thank him for the job well done."

"He's in the hut taking a nap," Iceland answered. "He's feeling ill. Miss here teleported them back to us and it seems his stomach couldn't take it."

"Teleported?" Norway asked suspiciously and gave their ally an indifferent glare. "I thought ye said ye couldn' use magic here? How do ye explain that?"

Mrs. Ally snorted. "Because it's not impossible if situation calls for it. It's not like we can't, we just prefer not to. Okay?"

"Because of the willow-o'-wisps?"

"Because of the willow-o'-wisps, for starters."

"For starters?"

Japan sighed and interrupted. "Miss. We appreciate your help greatly and acknowledge we wouldn't still be here if it wasn't for you and your friend. But this is ridiculous. I do not know what are you hiding and why, but I think you owe us an explanation by now. What is this place? Why is this place a no-man's-land?"

.*** *** ***

The pain was gone. He felt sore. But pain: not so much. However, moving was the last thing his body seemingly wanted to do. So he laid on his back, eyes closed and didn't pay any attention to his surroundings. It was quiet, but it felt good and somehow living. He ventured the space around him with his other drowsy and still slow senses. He could feel, smell, and hear the area around breathe with him as he slowly forced his eyes to open in interest.

He didn't know immediately where he was or remember what had happened. A few glances later his brain recognized the place and a few more before he remembered why. Exactly how, however, didn't occur to him no matter how many times he blinked at the ceiling and the walls he could see. For some reason, his eyesight felt crooked and distorted.

Slowly he forced his head to move to the side to see more around. A little away from him, in another bed laid France.

He was shocked. France shouldn't have been there. He had been just fine. He shouldn't have been there in bandages, unconscious, looking pale and weak. Why? He opened his mouth to call him, but all he could manage was grumpy whisper he didn't hear well even himself.

A movement in his far eyesight caught his attention and at the same time, his ears registered they had heard footsteps. He looked at the girl who had come in. She had come to see France, because that's where she first directed her way, before she turned to glance at him and immediately froze.

The girl clutched the papers against her chest and dropped a medical bag from her hand to the floor, shivering. "England?"

This time he managed to make his voice clearer as he answered. "What is it? Seychelles?"

* * *

A/N: Hello. I was seriously in belief that it hasn't been all that long since I updated this story. Perhaps starting to publish Cold Expedition made me think that: it has been a while since I've posted two stories at the same time. But the important thing is: here you go, have a new chapter of War. I hope you forgive me the wait again, I'm terribly slow with this because it's hard to write. It takes me time to reach a final result I'm satisfied with. I hope this chapter makes up for the wait to some extent. I'm myself quite content how it turned out (after rewriting the Estonia scene five times...).

Does this count as a cliffhanger?

**kshima91**: Dimension Tales has five parts that are loosely connected, but not in a way it matters in which order you read them. War is the 1st one, obviously. The 2nd is called Dream, in which the nations are trapped inside dreams and need to find their way out by finding passwords and undoing locks that keep dreams and real world apart. The 3rd is called Fantasy in which the nations are send into a fantasy world human imagination has created. While there, they get turned into various fantasy creatures etc. and need to accomplish twelve (not-so-)heroic deeds to "win the game" and get home. This one is the longest. The 4th is called Past in which the nations try to prevent the past and present from entwining (this is the shortest), and the last one is called Future, in which it is explained why all the the other parts happened. All five start with a larger meeting of nations where something happens or something that has already happened is discussed and the settings are similar in first three, but that's about how much they have in common.

Whew, sorry for the wall of text. I hope this answered your question. And thank you for a long review, never apologise for that. I like it when people are commenting various different things.

**Guesty**: Thank you. I'm happy to kill your feels.

**betsybugaboo**: a) asdfghjklasdff... x.x

Would this help? (Underlining = captain, italicized = currently unable to fight, bracets = has switched places somewhere else)

Action group: 

**Centers**: _Germany_, _England_, China, (Sweden), Denmark, (Lithuania), Poland, _Iceland_, Russia, Taiwan, Australia, Belarus

**Right wing**: Japan, _France_, (Belgium)_, _Romano,_ Spain_, Canada, Cuba, _Hong Kong_, Ukraine

**Left wing**: (China), Korea, (Belarus), _Austria_, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, (Netherlands), Hungary

**Sniper**: Switzerland, occasionally Finland

**China's fighting back-up team**: Lithuania, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands

Backup group:

**Commander**: (Hungary)

Later: Finland, Liechtenstein and Seychelles

**Head medic**: (Finland)

Later: Seychelles

**Permanent participants**: Liechtenstein, Seychelles, Latvia

**Runners**: Italy, Sealand

Homing group:

**Leader**: Norway

**Participants**: _Estonia_

Copy pasted from my own notes. (Almost: I deleted some spoilers, like the third sniper. *smile*)

b) pffft- XD You. But to answer your question: no. I'm afraid that's not possible.

...

I think I've never written such a long A/N... Do people eve read these if they're this long?

Wings, thank you for incredible proofreading speed.


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